The Other Grimes
by Screwloose
Summary: Katherine Grimes is a lot of things - a pain in the ass, a rebel without a cause, an older sister, emotionally disturbed, and a bit of a hardass - but there is one thing she isn't...she's no bitch. If the world's going to break her, it's going to have to do a lot better than a few million undead flesh-eaters.
1. Chapter 1: It's A-Me

The wire of the bucket handle bit into my palm as I heaved it onto the picnic table. It's contents, an assortment of tools, clanged together loudly in the plastic container. The bucket was supposed to be taken to Jim and Dale who were tinkering on the RV like they had been for as long as I could remember, perhaps ever since arriving in the gorge to begin with. However, I had been working all morning and I needed a break. I was sure that they could wait a few extra minutes on their tools because, if we're being honest, it couldn't be that important that I get the items to the two gentlemen or they would have gotten them themselves. Besides, the heavy bucket was seconds away from cleaving my hand right in two.

Plopping down on the bench seat, I swung my legs around and grabbed the neckline of my shirt, hauling it up and stretching the fabric to wipe at the sweat dripping into my eyes. I felt like a mess, and I knew I looked like one too. My hair was braided but even then it hung to my waist in a thick rope that had become frayed and loose since I'd fashioned it this morning. My skin was dirt and oil smudged, my nails caked with hard lye from scrubbing shirts with homemade soap. I had had a busy morning, busier than normal. It started with my usual pre-dawn run around the quarry, followed by breakfast and my daily chores. These consisted of things like laundry, dishes, and cleaning my shared tent.

Somehow, through one event or another, I had also gotten roped into babysitting duty which was something I actively tried to avoid. There had been a screw up with the delegating, and Amy was double errand-ed to laundry duty rather than her usual babysitting. I had been volunteered by Mom, which had rubbed me the wrong way, but after two hours of being manhandled by my little brother and his merry band of demon spawn, I was exhausted. It didn't help that it was brutally hot outside, the sun shining fierce over my head, searing the sensitive skin under my eyes. The sting emanating from them now let me know that a sunburn was well on its way.

"Katie!"

I almost growled at the sound of my name, but instead I hung my head for a moment before rising. I just needed five minutes to myself without someone else calling for my assistance. I was well known around camp, mostly since the leader of our ragtag group was a man I considered to be my uncle. Even without that sometimes-helpful-sometimes-debilitating relationship, it was easy to stay in good terms with everyone in the small settlement as long as you followed the unspoken rules.

Ah, the rules. They went as followed: don't be an ass, don't be lazy, and don't be stupid. Short, sweet, and to the point. It seemed, to me at least, that I had a little more practice in those areas than others. Was I biased? Maybe. I wasn't Mother Teresa, or anything, but I was always there to lend a helping hand…maybe not willingly, all the time, but I was still there and my hand was still extended. It had earned me a reputation of being a constant assistant and worker bee throughout the certain group that I dwelled in with my mother and brother.

As I pushed to my feet, taking the time to give a languid stretch that had my back popping and my legs quivering with released tension, I took a quick scan around the camp to see who it was who had called for me. A number of people milled around me, most who's names I didn't know despite a few months of living with one another. The one person who was missing, though, was my other half. The ying to my yang. The gravy to my biscuits. The Robin to my Batman. The cheese to my grits. The…well, there were several other pairings I could go on with for a very long time. Point being, Glenn wasn't here.

Glenn was currently on one of his solo runs into the city, just a brief recon to scope out where he was going to be going tomorrow. Although we'd only known each other for a short while, he'd quickly grown to become one of my favorite people left on this planet. He's my buddy, my run partner, my voice of reason, and my cohort in crime. A few times, he'd even been my alibi. I didn't have an older sibling, but he was as close to one as I would get, both before and now. We bonded rather quickly seeing as even though he was almost a decade older than me, we shared many of the same interests. Portal was good, Marvel kicked DC's ass but Batman would beat the shit out of Superman, and chocolate was a million times better than vanilla.

Not only that, but we both shared an almost suicidal need for an adrenaline rush, it seemed. Like I said before, we were run partners. Him and I would go on runs into the city, much to my mother's displeasure, and bring back miscellaneous things the group needed. This hadn't been easy to convince Lori and Shane into letting me do, let me tell you. You would think that, at sixteen years old, I'd be more than capable of being responsible for my own actions. You would be wrong. Very wrong.

In fact, the first few times me and him did venture into the city, I had snuck out of camp. Shane was a busy man, and therefore he didn't have time to watch me as he went about his leader duties. Lori was…more or less concerned with Carl, when she was watching him at least. Most of the time, she left that to me while she frolicked around camp barking orders to others. So, it had been relatively easy to slip past their noses, and all I had to do was lie to Glenn and tell him they said it was cool. He might not be able to tell a bluff to save his life, but the guy also had absolutely zero radar for when a lie was being thrown right in his face.

Lying and subterfuge had kind of been my cup of tea before the fall of civilization, and the proof of it lay in stories that Shane and my mother could tell for the next three years. I wasn't the best kid growing up, I'd be the first to admit to that. Mom and Dad had tried their hardest to keep their constant fighting and bickering and utter unhappiness behind closed doors, but I had caught on pretty quick. You could only blame so much of the palpable tension on bills or work before the excuse became redundant. It wasn't until last year, though, when I found the proof of how far their relationship had been shattered when I had started acting out. Plus, being the daughter of a policeman, it was only a matter of time before I rebelled against the oppressive authority that was the justice system…at that time of my life, I may or may not have been watching too many FREE THE PEOPLE documentary videos on YouTube.

Being sixteen with no job, no money, and no vehicle, my way of rebellion had to be creative and cheap. That is what led to a few bad decisions on my part. My ears were decorated with multiple piercings, small hoops dangling from each puncture all the way up my ear lobes. It was pure luck that they were mostly even as they had been done by a girl in my sophomore class with a needle and an ice cube after school. Likewise, my belly button had a small stud impaled in it under my t-shirt. That had been done by another friend, but I hadn't gotten as lucky. It had gotten infected and I'd had to reveal it to my parents in order for them to take me to the doctors to get the necessary antibiotics.

I had a small assortment of tattoos that I had gotten, also without my parent's permission, thanks to the older brother of an acquaintance who will remain anonymous to my death bed. The guy had been an up-and-coming tattoo artist and I'd volunteered to let him use me as his canvas. My right ring finger was adorned with an inky black outline of a claddagh ring that encircled the whole finger, a piece of artwork that my best friend Hendrick had also adorned as a symbol of our bond. The ink work was shaky but still well-done for a newbie to the artform.

My right forearm had been added later in life by the same guy, but it was much clearer and clean. The silhouette of a crow was blackened into the inside of my wrist, wings spread and talons sharp, about the size of my fist. Under it in curving text, the words _corvus oculum corvi non eruit_ were scrawled. I had a thing for Latin. It was a dead language, so the meaning was often unknown to strangers unless they took the time to research it. The tattoos, unlike the piercings, were a little more than just teenage rebellion—they were personal. They were for me, reminders for myself, for my enjoyment and benefit. They were my personal stories. My parents hadn't seen the symbolism behind it, though. Mom and claimed I looked like a thug and that it would be harder to get a job or accepted into a decent school. Dad had given me a deeply disappointed look, eyeing the reddened skin and bandage with resignation.

But, I was getting ahead of myself. My tattoos were from the past, and I was very much living in the present. The city-runs were a bit more than rebellion, as well. It felt good to get out and actually contribute to the group. I could only help so much by scrubbing pans and underwear. Besides, somebody had to watch Glenn's back when he was out there. It might as well be me.

Of course, I eventually was caught and had on my hands three very unhappy individuals. But, although my calculated risk earned me two weeks of dish duty and emptying the RV's latrines, neither Shane nor my mother could tell me I wasn't capable of handling my own out there anymore. So, when Glenn's next run came around and I asked to go…Shane had still said no. But, even though he knew I was going to go anyway, he didn't try to stop me. Mom flipped, but there was little she could do save chaining me to the RV's grated front. She'd thought about it…I knew she had.

My mother is Lori Grimes and Carl is my little brother. We made it out of Atlanta with the help of my father's partner, Shane Walsh, who was like an uncle to me and Carl. My father is…was...Rick Grimes was dead, now. He was shot weeks before the world went to hell and fell into a coma after surgery. When shit started hitting the fan and we were trying to evacuate to Atlanta, thinking it was a safe zone, Shane went to try and get him from the hospital. It was too late. The machines that were keeping him alive malfunctioned and he died in that hospital room. Since then, Shane had stepped into the role that my Dad's death had left, but it didn't feel right. It didn't feel like Dad was really dead. I suppose that's what happened when you didn't get to see a body, didn't get to see proof. I didn't have the closure I needed.

Things with my mother were strained, but that wasn't any real surprise. Even before the Turn, we hadn't gotten along all that well. I had been a Daddy's girl through and through, and with as much as my parents had fought, I was almost always on Dad's side. He confided in me when he couldn't Lori, and that forged a deep bond between us. Therefore, whenever he was on her shit list, I almost always was too. It wasn't that I liked the tension between me and my mother, but you couldn't always take back words and apologies didn't always work. A lot of things had happened between us.

Carl was three years younger than me; although he thought he was already sixteen by the way he acted. If I was being honest, he was the main reason I didn't get any sleep. I was always tasked with looking out for him, making sure he didn't get into trouble or something like that, on top of my other responsibilities. That's a job for a mother, but, mine was always disappearing randomly throughout the day. She left her rules behind, though. Mom made it clear that she didn't want him leaving camp, but what did he do every chance he got? He pushed every boundary that Mom set for him, and got away with it for the most part with a stern talking to and a slap on the wrist. He was a brat, alright? That's what happened when you didn't spank your kids. _I_ got spanked when I was his age. What the hell happened to discipline? To be fair, I probably hadn't set a very good example for him with the way I constantly snuck off on my own. And even with discipline, I had turned into something of a disappointment…maybe it was just in the Grimes DNA to do thing you shouldn't.

T-Dog and Jacqui were a tent or two down from mine. I wasn't one hundred percent sure that they were a couple, but it seemed to me that asking would be inappropriate. Everyone assumed it anyway, and the two never bothered denying it. Jim, the mechanic, was a very silent man who kept to himself like a self-imposed pariah. It made me a little uneasy to be around him sometimes. I lived in a household where everyone expressed themselves through explosive actions and raised voices. His calmness and tranquility…I don't know, it just bothered me. It felt like he was a body of tumultuous water being held back by a simple dam.

Amy and Andrea were sisters from a state over, Florida. They were complete opposites of one another regardless of their physical similarities. Amy was your typical college girl, probably someone I would have hated in another world, but her carefree and laidback personality was a breath of fresh air…especially when compared to her sister. Andrea was older by almost ten years, I think, and I remember someone telling me she had been a civil rights lawyer. Yeah, it all made sense; she had a stick shoved up somewhere unpleasant. She played mother more than she did sister, something that Amy like to complain about whenever she got the chance.

The Dixon brothers were infamous in our group, treated like wild animals by almost everyone. If you didn't mess with them, though, they didn't seem to mess with you (most of the time). Merle was the oldest, the loudest and the most boisterous, the easiest to anger, and he had a drug problem to boot. A real package deal that one was. Daryl was the younger brother and almost as different from Merle as Amy was to Andrea. He didn't like to start things, from what I could tell, but he didn't have a damn problem finishing them. No drug problem from what I could tell from my long-distance ogling, but he went along with everything Merle decided, and in my opinion that was almost just as bad. Despite their inflammatory presence, they could hunt. That was a major asset to us, so they earned their keep that way.

The Peletier family made me want to cry and spit at the same time. It was heartbreaking to watch their domestic life play out like a sad reality show for everyone at camp to see. A reality show because, even though everyone saw what was happening, nobody did a damn thing to stop it…myself included. Carol was a kind older woman, unusually meek and soft-spoken. She had a daughter, Sophia, who was about Carl's age and cavity inducingly sweet. The patriarch of the family ruined the picture, making my skin crawl any time he was near. Ed Peletier was the definition of a scumbag, worse than Merle if I could bring myself to admit such a thing. At least Merle didn't hit any of the women in camp, and I couldn't see him being a man to…look at his daughter the way Ed did. I just couldn't. It was common knowledge through must of camp that Ed beat his wife, the talk about her bruises was always a hot topic of conversation.

The Morales family was a breath of fresh air compared to everyone else. The rarest thing in the world these days was finding a completely intact family, but they had somehow managed to do just that. They had two kids, both younger than Carl and Sophia, named Eliza and Louis. They kept to themselves, though. Dale, the sweet old man who owned the RV, was like a grandfather to everyone, always there to offer a piece of advice or throw some old proverb at you for no real apparent reason. It seemed as if he had a thumb in everyone's pie, though, and I had a feeling the sweet old man was sort of a gossip whore. Dad used to say call people like him Chatty Cathy's.

I finally pinpointed who it had been that called my name, seeing Jacqui approaching with a few towels over her shoulder and a bottle of soap in hand. She waved them at me and I almost let out a sigh of relief when I realized I wasn't about to be asked to do another favor. Tossing one of the rough cloth towels at me to catch, she beckoned to me as she started to walk past.

"It's bath day. You coming now, or waiting another week to wallow in your filth?"

Bath day. Right. Wednesdays were bath days for the women in the ragtag camp we'd organized here. Men bathed on Mondays, and whether the alliteration was supposed to be clever or not was unclear to me. All I knew was that it was supposed to help us remember, and yet here I was caught off guard.

"Well, despite how fond I was becoming of my filth, I guess it's about time to scrub off my protective layer." I sighed dramatically. "Just, let me get these to Dale, I guess-,"

"Oh, just leave 'em." Jacqui said nonchalantly, waving her hand in a dismissive manner. "If he really needs them, he'll come looking. It'd do him good to pull his head out of that engine block if only for a few seconds. Inhaling all that diesel can't be healthy for a man of his age."

"It's like you could read my mind." I smirked, throwing the towel over my shoulder and trailing after her.

Amy appeared by my side almost out of thin air, lobbing two bottles of body wash at me that I only barely had time to catch before they smashed against the ground. I juggled them for a moment before securing them in my arms, sending her a halfhearted glare as she threw her own arm over my shoulders.

"I can't wait to get this new layer of dirt off of me." She crowed, excited as she usually was when Wednesday came around. "I'll feel like a new woman!"

"Right." I snorted, slipping out of her embrace. It was too hot for such affections. "There isn't enough water in Georgia to scrub the ugly off of you."

The insult was thrown with teasing intent, despite its harshness, and Amy didn't bat an eyelash before she hurled back her own insult. At this point, our word battles were tradition between the two of us. The real insult would be if one of us didn't try and verbally abuse the other on a daily basis.

"Then, I'll just find a mask to cover it, like your mom did for you."

"You couldn't afford my looks." I snapped, as we began our trek towards the quarry, more women congregating around us.

"Honey, _anyone_ could afford your looks."

"Yeah? And how many people could "afford" you at university?" I jeered with a smile, knowing I had won this round.

"Oh!" Amy gasped in false shock, taking a step towards me with arms wide open in a threatening pose. "You want to go, Kit?"

"Back off Amy." Andrea strolled up to her sister, a change of clean clothes thrown over her shoulder. "We both know she'd kick your ass."

"What?" Amy sounded genuinely taken aback.

"Oh, come on." Andrea snorted, flashing me a look over her little sister's head. "You've never been a fighter. Remember Tommy Lewis?"

"Tommy Lewis was a foot taller than me, a dude, and a first grade bully!" Amy defended herself from whatever argument Andrea was referencing. "And, if you remember since you had to pick me up from detention that day, I knocked out one of his teeth!"

"A baby tooth." Andrea reminded. "One that, if I remember from your whining, he got twenty bucks for from the tooth fairy."

I admittedly drowned out the rest of their conversation as Carol and Sophia hesitantly joined us, and I drifted from the blonde sisters to the mother and daughter duo. Sophia smiled prettily at me as I approached, and Carol gave me a more subdued version of the gesture. Falling in step with them, I forced myself into a more amicable disposition. Amy had the kind of effect on me that made me act younger than my already young sixteen year old self.

"What'll it be, ladies?" I asked, holding up the two half empty bottles of body wash. "Cherry blossom or mango mandarin?"

"Cherry blossom." Sophia chirped immediately, and I passed her the pink hued bottle.

"Good." I sighed, feigning relief. "I'm a mango girl, myself."

Despite the fact that I hated babysitting, I quite enjoyed the kids when it was just one or two of them. One of two of them was fine – I had two arms to defend myself. It was only when they ganged up on me and treated me like their punching bag when I vowed that I'd pull my uterus out before having one of them. That wasn't to say I wasn't good with them, because I was, which was why I was always being asked to babysit. I think it was one of those vicious cycle things everyone talked about.

"I've never had a mango." Sophia informed me, one of her hands holding onto her mother's while the soap bottle occupied the other.

"Actually, I never have either." I admitted, smiling down at her. "I just like the way they smell. I've never been the kind of girl to taste exotic fruits. Mangoes, sugar apples, star fruits, guava, papaya. No, ma'am, I'll just stick with my peaches and apples."

Sophia giggled and the sound made my mouth twitch up involuntarily. By this point we had reached the quarry, hard packed dirt changing to loose sand that disappeared into unreal blue water. Small waves lapped at the bank enticingly as our small group came to a stop beside a fold away table that was permanently kept down there. It was used to hold out items, keeping them out of the sand for the most part. There were few things more unpleasant than the feeling of sanding chaffing in the wrong places. As a unit, we all bathed rather quickly. We knew that a few of the family men in the group took up guarding us while we were down here, some ways off the beaten path to give us our privacy, but there was still something unnerving to being naked out in the open. In a world where things wanted to eat your flesh, having so much of it exposed seemed foolish.

We scrubbed and we rinsed, scrubbed again and rinsed one more time. There was a small splash war that broke out between Amy and I, but it was quelled quickly when we exactly caught Sophia in the crossfire and ended up driving soapy water into her eyes. We dried off as best as we could with our meager towels and redressed on the beach, trying to stay on the packed sand as we hopped around on one leg to replace our pants in an effort to avoid the powdering sand sticking to out still damp skin. My hair soaked the back of my flannel as I redressed, turning the red material a few shades darker. Washing off in the lake wasn't like a shower at home, but it was better than wallowing in dirt and sweat for an unknown amount of time.

I snagged my boots from under the table and underwent the ritual of slipping them back on, balancing on one leg with a clean and dry foot in the air to put on a clean sock. When I stood solidly back on my feet, the sheath of my knife thumped against my thigh, reminding me that it was empty. I grabbed the blade from where it was driven into the sand underneath the table, in plain sight and yet somewhat harmless with the blade hidden away. I slipped it back into its home, letting out a breath at the peace I felt once it was back on my being. The setting sun had already disappeared behind the rocky walls of the canyon, giving the appearance that the ridgeline was on fire from the orange rays bursting out from behind it. The sun probably wouldn't be gone for another hour or so, but shadows washed the quarry in darkness. I chewed on my bottom lip, staring out across the water, hearing the others getting ready to depart.

"You coming back, Katie, or you just gonna sit there?" Andrea called, suddenly snagging my attention.

I thought about it for a moment before I shook my head. "If it's alright, I'll be up in a minute. I need a few moments for myself."

Andrea shot me a sympathetic smile. "You want me to tell your mother you'll be late to dinner?"

"Oh, crap." I moaned, remembering the fact that I was supposed to help Mom dish out dinner tonight. She was my mother. I loved her but…a fire burned in me when we spoke. "You're right. I'm coming-,"

"No, no. I'll help her, you take as long as you need down here. Just come back before dark, alright?" Andrea offered.

I shot my hazel green eyes up to meet her icy ones with gratefulness. If there was one person who understood what I went through with my mother, it was Andrea. The blonde woman and my life giver seemed always to be at odds, fighting one another or arguing over simple things like hanging laundry or the temperature of the beans we ate. So, the fact that she was willingly putting herself in Lori's path meant a lot to me.

"Thanks, Andrea." I said earnestly, smiling at her before turning back to look across the flat water.

As their footsteps faded, I became hyperaware of the sounds of the cricket symphony around me, singing a song of loneliness and loss. At least, that's what it sounded like to me. I hummed along with it, occasionally kicking up a handful of sand to add to the orchestra. I leaned back against the table, feeling it sink unsteadily a few inches into the sand before stabilizing once again. I heaved a sigh, feeling exhausted but not ready to head back up to camp and fall asleep in an empty tent. I never slept right when Glenn was gone, and I had a feeling that tonight wouldn't be any different. I could go and bunk with Mom and Carl tonight, but these days I found it hard to be in Mom's company without feeling anger. It had been bad before the outbreak, but after Dad died…

 _I hurried through the house, backpack heavy on my back and stumbling as my untied shoe laces tripped me up. My mouth still tasted of toothpaste from a hasty brushing, and my long hair was messily braided to the side. All in all, I looked like crap and I could tell today was going to be a very bad day indeed. Mondays. God damn Mondays._

" _Mom!" I hollered, "Where's your purse? I need twenty dollars for the FFA party!"_

" _I told you it was in the dining room!"_

 _I rolled my eyes, arms rising to my sides before I harshly slapped them back down against my thighs. "Yeah, you told me that, but it wasn't in there!"_

" _Then try my room! But hurry, Kit, the bus will be here soon!"_

" _I know the bus will be here soon." I muttered under my breath as I hurried out of the dining room and down the hallway towards my parent's bedroom. "I get up every morning at the crack ass of dawn just o catch the damn thing."_

 _Except that morning in particular, I had slept through three of my alarms and woken up with barely enough time to throw on the clothes I'd worn yesterday (thank God today was a the beginning of a new week meaning nobody would know my literal dirty little secret) and take care of my other morning essentials. Now, I had less than three minutes to find Mom's purse which she never could keep track of._

 _I pushed through the half closed door and flipped the light switch on, wincing at the suddenly brightness. The bed was empty, Mom in the kitchen probably burning the eggs I'd have to force myself to swallow, and Dad having left before even I woke up to make it to the station. I scanned the room before letting out a noise of delight as I spotted the leather brown bag sitting on the ottoman in the corner. I raced over to it and yanked it open, snagging the wallet from its confines._

 _Popping the snap, I quickly pulled out a twenty and a five dollar bill and stuck them in my pockets, tossing the wallet back into its home. As I spun to head towards the kitchen, I heard the disheartening sound of the messenger like bag fall to the ground and spill out its contents. I moaned in aggravation, half tempted to just leave it but knowing I'd just catch flak for it later, I reluctantly turned back and kneeled down._

 _I wasn't careful or considerate as I stuffed receipts, makeup bags, a few magazines, some hairspray cans and a small notepad back into the bag. However, as my fingers closed around a thick envelope that had been torn open, I hesitated with faint interest at the name on the front. Frowning, I brought it closer to my face._

 **Burrstone & Associates, Family Law and Divorce**

 _My mouth parted in confusion and panic at the company's name, and without thinking of the consequences, I pulled the contents out of the already opened top. My fingers shook slightly as I unfolded the creased cardstock, eyes roaming the official cream colored page in horror as my fears were confirmed. One of my hands flew over my mouth in shock, heart beating heavy in my chest. My stomach churned unpleasantly with nausea. It was a damn good thing I hadn't eaten yet, because my breakfast would have been splattered all over the carpet._

" _Kit! The bus is here!"_

 _The sound of Mom's voice made me jump, the papers falling from my grasp. I froze for only a second before I started hastily sticking the proof of my parents' anger and dysfunctionality back into its rightful place and rising from my crouch._

" _Katherine!"_

" _I'm coming!" I shouted, my voice sounding cold._

 _I took a deep breath to compose myself before heading towards the kitchen where Mom was hollering. The entire way there, I could only think about those divorce papers I'd seen, wondering if Dad knew._

I never found out if he did or not, but weeks passed and although the two of them fought like cats and dogs, those papers were never signed. I would know. I made it my business to sneak into Mom's underwear drawer every few weeks and check. Yes, they remained unsigned, but they remained all the same. I recognized that Mom might be sticking it out for now, but she held a loaded gun in her arsenal. And it infuriated me. I couldn't fathom why she would want to divorce my father. Dad was a great man, a great husband, a great father, a great cop, a great everything. So, why in the hell was he not good enough for her? Was I biased? I don't know.

"Don't you know you ain't supposed to be out here after dark?" The deep southern draw was unmistakable, but unexpected all the same.

I jumped slightly, whipping my head around and meeting Daryl's gaze as he slowly made his way towards the bank I was at, looking uncomfortable in my presence. I didn't feel offended, Daryl looked like he was uncomfortable in most situations. Nonetheless, I smiled unsurely at him. He must have been making his way back to camp from the woods at the opposite end of the lake when he saw me. I was just glad he had the keen eyes of a hunter, because the last thing I wanted was to have had him mistake me for a Walker and put a crossbow bolt through my temple. That would have just been unfortunate.

"It isn't dark yet." I pointed out, nodding up at the orange tinted sky.

"I guess it ain't." Daryl nodded, stopping a few feet away from me with eyes glued to his feet.

I pursed my lips as silence between us. I might be relatively nice to everyone in camp, but I wasn't necessarily good with the small talk. Plus, Daryl and I never really conversed unless I was bringing him laundry or dinner. Sometimes, we'd pass each other while walking through camp, and I'd do the awkward pursed smile and head nod bit. That was pretty much the extent of our interactions.

"Did you hear that, when Glenn gets back, there's gonna be a big group run." I tried to spike up a conversation, not sure how to interact with the reclusive man and yet knowing that walking away at this point without another word would just be plain rude.

Immediately, I wanted to smack myself. Of course he'd heard about the group run. It's all the camp had been able to talk about all week, and it was the one reason Glenn had barred me from joining them. I sighed internally, shaking my head. I really needed to work on talking with people like a normal human being.

"Yeah. Merle's going." Daryl grunted.

"Really?" I hadn't meant to sound so surprised, but it certainly came out that way. I felt my face go hot at my rudeness, but at the look he shot me I figured I might as well continue. "With a group?"

He nodded in understanding to my question. It wasn't a secret that Merle wasn't exactly a team player, and since we'd never sent a group out before, this was uncharted territory. Bringing more than one person introduced a whole new level of issues that we weren't experienced in, and I was suspicious whether or not the extra hands would be worth the added risk. Especially Merle's big, meaty, tattle-tale strangler hands.

"Yeah.

"Well…" I struggled with something to say. "That's good, right? He's volunteering…assimilating…all that crap."

Daryl gave a noncommittal shrug, looking completely uninterested in the conversation. I continued the one sided dialogue and decided to jump off of the Merle bashing tangent before I inadvertently pissed the younger brother off.

"I wanted to go." I pressed. "But Glenn doesn't think it's safe, bringing a group along. For the longest time, it's just been the two of us, you know? He's worried that the extra people could distract us, and by us I know he secretly means me."

Daryl's eyes cut over to look at me every so often, and it was the only indicator I got that told me he was still listening.

"But," I inhaled slowly. "If only Glenn goes, then it's just going to be him up there with a bunch of people who don't know their asses from holes in the ground."

I earned myself a snort on that one, and it prompted my lips to twitch with a faint feeling of success. It wasn't the laugh I'd been aiming for, but hey, I'd take a snort…in a different context, that could have meant something very different.

"I just think I know my way around the hellhole pretty well, and that he needs all the help he can get. But, Shane's put his foot down and Mom is…well, Mom."

"You like going out there?" The way he asked made it sound more like a statement than a question, but I answered anyway.

"Yeah," I said haltingly. "I guess I do, in a way."

"Why?"

I was fairly surprised we were still conversing. Daryl barely muttered a few words at camp, let along enough to have a civil conversation with me. I wished I had brought a timer down with me. I could have probably set a record for longest discussion with a Dixon brother. This was definitely going onto the Camp Bulletin Board when I finally got around to building it.

"I don't want to forget they're dangerous." I explained, digging the tow of my boot into the sand. "I feel like the longer I stay here, the safer I feel, and that's supposed to be a good thing, but feeling safe anywhere these days is stupid. Stupid gets you killed."

Daryl nodded a few times in contemplation, seeming to chew on my words.

"You wanna know the way I see it?"

I gave him a nod of my own.

"The way I see it, you've got it all figured out. More than I can say about half the dumbasses here." He paused for a second as I stood there in shocked silence at his compliment. "You sure you ain't adopted?"

I let out a laugh at that one, giving a one shouldered shrug. He looked up over the canyon walls and jerked his head behind him.

"S'go. Sun's setting, don't want to be mistaken for Walkers."

With that, the old antisocial Daryl was back and I let out a breath of relief. I could work with antisocial Daryl. Spinning around, his mask fell back into place and he only looked over his shoulder once to make sure I was following. The intimidating crossbow was slung over his back like a security blanket. I didn't think I'd ever seen him without it, come to think of it. With a sigh, I followed. No sooner than we had reached camp, myself a trailing a few feet behind Daryl, Lori descended on us with a worried look. She gave Daryl a strained smile, which he ignored as he headed back over to his and Merle's tent, and took me gently by the arm. My first instinct was to yank the limb away, but I knew it would only lead to a fight and I was too tired to argue with my mother.

"Why didn't you come up with everyone else?" She whispered sternly, eyes reprimanding.

"Mom, please." I sighed in annoyance, my hand coming over her own to pry her fingers off of my forearm. "I just wanted some time alone."

"You shouldn't be wandering around by yourself-,"

"First of all, I'm sixteen, not six, Mom." I interrupted. "Second, I run the quarry every morning by myself, and thirdly, I wasn't alone. As you saw, Daryl showed up before I could get any real self meditation going on."

"The only reason I let you run in the mornings is because I know it helps you keep your moods under control." She informed me in a voice that made it clear she wouldn't be afraid to change that. "And, I think you more than know I'm not comfortable with you hanging around the Dixon brothers."

I let out a huff at her reminder of my chemical imbalance. I suffered from bipolar depression before the infection, but after pills and therapy lessons, I had more or less gotten the mood swing under control. Then, shit hit the fan and I ran out of my pills long before we reached the quarry. So, I was fighting a mental battle with myself at half force, relying on the therapeutic running and my heart to hearts with Glenn to help me bridge the dark cloud in my life that came around all too often. And, all too often, Mom liked to use it as an excuse to my behavior.

I'm snappy with her? Must be the depression. I failed a math test? Must be the depression. I'm reclusive, rebellious, untamable, etc…Must be the depression.

"Let me?" I snapped.

"Kit-," She started, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

"Where do you get off judging the Dixons?" I went on, crossing my arms. "Sure, Merle's a hothead and unpredictable, but Daryl isn't bad. Besides, I never hear you complaining while you're eating their squirrels."

Lori raised her eyebrows at me in shock, chin tucking into her neck as she shot me a look that said I'd better watch myself. I heaved a sigh and shook my head, grabbing two bowls from the small side table she had sitting out.

"Since you're too busy playing Judge Judy," I said snidely, "I'll take them their dinner. You know, the food they hunted and killed so you could go to bed with a full stomach."

"Katherine Jameson Grimes, don't you dare walk away from me!" She hissed, mindful to keep her voice down as to not draw attention to our little domestic dispute.

I did just that, rolling my eyes and marching away. Most people would be cautious to approach the brothers set up, but I was only a little wary. I was probably one of the only people in camp the brothers didn't automatically shoot baleful glares at. I thought it had something to do with my charming personality. I was God's little ray of sarcastic sunshine. However, although I was confident, I wasn't stupid. I slowed my approach the closer I got, unsure of what kind of welcome I'd received. I was tolerated…most of the time. Sort of like a feral cat that you occasionally put food out for when you were feeling generous, but the second the cat shit on your front porch it got a boot up the ass. I was said feral cat, and Merle was said boot up the ass.

The man of the hour was sat outside his tent in a camping chair as he observed the rest of the camp with a mixture of disdain and dismissal, a rifle slung over his lap. He saw me coming and raised the fingers on one of his hands in greeting. I acknowledged it with a chin jerk. So far, so good.

"Hey there, sweetheart!" He said in a jubilant voice that I only usually heard when he wanted to start trouble, but it seemed to be commonplace when directed to me. "Is that dinner I smell? Because if I smell it, it means somebody's gone and ruined it."

I decided it was safe to approach, hopefully assuming he wasn't high. I gave a small shrug as I came to a stop in front of him, peering into the plastic bowls and seeing what lay inside for the first time. Oh, he was going to have something smart to say about this.

"It's supposed to be dinner." I grimaced, looking down at the slightly burnt meat that was tinged with charcoal on the edges. "Mom overcooked it. Again."

"Ah." Merle grimaced as well as I handed it to him. "Son of a bitch. She did, didn't she."

"Sorry." I apologized.

Merle waved my apology away and set his bowl aside, pointing a large finger at me. I raised an eyebrow expectantly.

"I heard you're not coming on that run."

I blinked in surprise. Damn, Daryl moved quick. I never took him to be a gossip whore, too. Dale and Daryl, Chatty Cathy's. That was something I needed to make a mental note about…maybe add it to that Bulletin Board.

"Yeah." I nodded. "I'm grounded, so to speak."

"Well, I'm offering you a little gift from ol' Merle, since you can't go yourself."

"A gift." I repeated in confusion. "What for?"

"A little insurance from you that Paula Dean over there doesn't burn my squirrel anymore." Merle grumbled. "I don't waste hours on end shooting those little bastards down just for them to be turned into chunks of coal."

"I'll do my best." My lips twitched in amusement. "What's the gift?"

"I might know where to score you those pills you've been needing."

That caught me off guard well and good, and I blinked at him a few seconds without breathing. Well, shit, looks like there was another Cathy in camp that needed to mind their own business as well.

"How…How do you know-,"

"I know everything, doll." He cut me off. "Ain't nothing a secret in this camp."

"Fucking _gossip whores_." I hissed indignantly, earning a laugh from Merle.

"That's the deal." He said when he finished his chortling. "A good ol' bottle of

"Sounds fair." I shrugged, hands shoving into the pockets of my jacket.

"Good, kid. Now, get outta here so I can enjoy my," He eyed his bowl distastefully, " _dinner_ in peace."

Pulling my hand out of my pocket, I flashed him and Daryl as peace sign as I backed away, the latter emerging from the tent just as I exited. Spinning around, I made my way back towards the campfire at a slow walk that quickly turned into a jog as I saw a familiar car parked a ways off from the RV and an Asian walking out of the Winnebago. A smile pulled at my lips and I dodged around the congregation at the fire, him catching sight of me and meeting me halfway.

"Hey." I greeted happily, throwing an arm around him in a soft hug before pulling back and running a scrutinizing eye over him. "You alright? How did the run go?"

"I'm glad to see that you still care." Glenn teased good-naturedly, brown eyes twinkling with playfulness and exhaustion. "I thought you would have forgotten all about me and found another best friend."

I snorted, brushing my fingers over a scrape on his left arm that was minor.

"Please, who else here would I make my best friend? Besides, you were gone a few hours, not days."

"You see, when you walked over here, I was feeling all appreciated for my sacrifice, but now I'm not feeling that so much." He complained, drawing his arm away and rubbing a hand over the scratch.

"That's just your hunger talking." I laughed. "If I had a Snickers bar, I'd give it to you."

"If you had a Snickers bar, I'd kill you for it." Glenn jested back, and I had a feeling he was only half joking.

"Well, no Snickers bar." I sighed regretfully. "But my Mom made Roadkill Rocks, if you want to try and choke those down."

Glenn let out a very audible whine, but nevertheless followed me over to the fire where everyone else had pretty much settled in to eat their dinner. We snagged the last two bowls and plopped down on our spots on our logs, him on the left and me on the right. We had switched it up one time, but ended up both complaining that our butts had left perfect indentations in the wood that was specific to our individual posteriors. It just wasn't comfortable unless my ass was in my ass-spot.

The campfire was warmed not just by the flames, but by the gentle hum of conversation reverberating in the air as people mingled and talked. I swallowed my squirrel without really chewing, not wanting to get the strong carbon flavor of the coal stuck in my mouth. Toothpaste was something that was considered a luxury item, and I'd been greedily hoarding the tube I'd packed when we first evacuated home. It only had about a third remaining, but since I had sadly decided that I only needed to brush my teeth every three days, I had a little while left in the tube.

"Are you still barred from the trip?" Glenn asked me as we ate.

"Yeah." I sighed in annoyance. "Mom refuses to listen to what I have to say, and Shane doesn't want to fight her on it. Why do you care? You don't want me going either."

"Sh." Glenn hushed me, spooning waving like a wand. "I merely suggested that you not come. How was I supposed to know they would forbid you?"

Speak of the elephant in the room, and it will stand on its hind legs and trumpet out the national anthem from its trunk. Shane walked into the middle of our powwow circle, pulling his baseball cap onto his head like he always did when he was getting ready to talk serious.

"As you all know," The sheriff announced, calling everyone's attention to him. "We got a group heading out tomorrow. Now, this is the first time we've sent out more than two people at a time. Usually, it's Kit and Glenn, and while they are more than capable at handling their business, I want to bring back a larger haul this time and that calls for more people. It's a completely volunteer basis. We've got Glenn, Merle and Morales confirmed on the rosters so far. Anyone else?"

I almost raised my hand purely out of spite, but Shane caught my eye first and gave me a look that was half tired amusement and half warning. So, I looked down and shook my head in silent displeasure instead. A silence fell over the campfire as people looked around to see who would step up. T-Dog raised his hand after a moment of debate.

"I'll go." He offered.

"Me too." Jacqui said, raising her hand as well.

"Me three." Andrea added her hand to the rest.

….

"This is a bad idea, isn't it?"

I was surprised that Glenn managed to keep his obvious displeasure about the group exploit quiet until we were alone in our tent. I hadn't missed the look of excitement in his eyes when nobody had stepped forward right away to volunteer. I looked up at him from my sleeping bag and quickly averted my eyes to busy myself with untying my boots.

"I already told you it was. Multiple times. In two languages." I said nonchalantly, kicking the beige footwear over to the corner of the tent before popping the button on my jeans so I could pull on a pair of plaid pajama pants. Glenn turned around swiftly so that I was presented with his back, however it did not deter his rant in the slightest.

"Atlanta is a shitstorm." He snapped on as if I hadn't spoken, arms crossed and probably glaring holes into the wall of the nylon structure. "And there are sometimes when _we_ barely made it out-,"

"Sh!" I hissed, mindful that we weren't actually in a room rather than a box made of fabric. "Keep your voice down!"

The last thing I needed was Mom or Shane overhearing and pulling me from runs completely.

"How am I supposed to smuggle a group in? And _why_?" He continued, albeit in a softer voice. "I think we've been doing pretty good on our own, the two of us. We always bring back enough supplies."

"You're preaching to the choir, brother." I snorted. "You talked to Shane about this?"

"Yeah." Glenn rolled his eyes. "Same bullshit, different day. Like, I get he's practically your uncle and all, but if you ask me he's kind of a…"

I rolled my eyes and mouthed a silent, _Oh my God_ , to the sky. Glenn had this tendency to revert into a whiny five year old when things didn't go his way. I loved him, but I think all too often he forgets the he's the older one.

"Don't roll your eyes at me."

"How did you…?" I asked in confusion, staring at his back.

"I know you well enough to sense when you're being a smart ass." He retorted.

I sighed and tied the drawstring on my pants before falling backwards onto my sleeping bag. Glenn turned around at the rustle of fabric and dropped down to take a reluctant seat on his own next to mine.

"I'm not being a smart ass!" I insisted, rolling my head to look at him. "All I want to say is that…Shane maybe hotheaded and full of himself sometimes, but I trust him with my life. I don't agree with the group thing, and I'm still pissed I'm not included, but he never does things just because he feels like it. There's always a reason. So, whatever it may be, I'm sure sending a group tomorrow is worth it."

He eyed me, both unbelieving and wary. I didn't blame him.


	2. Chapter 2: Come Home

Clattering cans filled the afternoon air as strings of them were tightened between two nearby copses of trees. I held onto my end of the wire tightly, only a pair of rawhide gloves protecting my skin from the razor-sharp metal under my fingers. I curled it around the small sapling a few times as Jim did the same on the other end, his tall figure slightly stooped to allow him to keep the line close enough to the ground that a stumbling figure would trip over it and sound the alarm. It wasn't as good as the wailing siren that would go off in our house if someone opened a door when the security system was activated, but it was good enough to get somebody's attention.

Even though the trees around us provided use with meager shade, it wasn't enough to stop the heavy sunlight from breaking through the foliage cover. Golden light dappled my skin in a mottled pattern, and I felt the burn all too much. Georgia was as hot as ever, humid air and unbearable temperatures combining to form a mess of sticky sweat and biting insects. I held the metal wire tight with one hand as Jim tacked some fencing nails into the bark of the tree, my free hand raising quickly and swatting at my neck as a sharp sting of a mosquito bite irritated me. I'd kill someone for some bug spray right now.

Of course, the stifling heat only lasted while the sun was out. Once it disappeared under the trees, then the horizon, a chilly wind would sweep across the landscape. I had grown up in the bipolar weather, so I was well used to it by this point. That didn't stop me from constantly thinking how inconvenient it was that my sweat would sooner or later cause my teeth to chatter from the cold if I didn't change out of the damp clothing before sun down.

"You think this is good?" I asked, one hazel green eye closed against a bead of sweat that had descended over my brow.

"Should be." The quiet man grunted, giving his hammer a final swing before wiping his gloved hands against his jeans.

I regarded him with some amusement, perching my hands on my hips and managing a smile despite how uncomfortable I was. My t-shirt was stuck to my stomach and back with sweat, my arms grimy with dirt, and my fingers aching from maintaining tension on the wire. My unease around the man was displaced as irritation from the environment made me a tad more brazen.

"You know, Jim, I feel like we have the best conversations." I grinned sarcastically, gesturing between the two of us with a gloved hand.

He smiled back awkwardly before ducking his head and meandering off back towards the RV where Dale was currently on watch. I watched him go, shaking my head. If I thought I was awkward around people, Jim's sole purpose in life was to prove me wrong. Well, that, and the fact that he was a killer mechanic. My eyes drifted up to Dale on the top of the RV, sitting in a camping chair with a rifle slung across his knees under the shade of a collapsible umbrella. His gaze was diligently sweeping the area on the lookout for trouble, occasionally picking the binoculars up off of his neck to peer more intently at something suspicious in the distance.

I pulled off my gloves and shoved them in my back pocket, raising my shirt to wipe at my face as I followed the path Jim had taken back towards the RV where I knew I could find a canteen of water to cool me down. God, it just kept getting hotter and hotter. Dale saw me approach, and he raised his hand in greeting. I reciprocated, having to squint as to not be blinded by the sun that was behind him somewhat, casting him in shadows.

"Kit."

My somewhat easy mood suddenly stutter-stepped as I recognized my mother's voice, and when I pulled my gaze from the white haired old man back to in front of me, I sighed silently. Mom was walking towards me with an empty red bucket in hand and her dark brown hair blowing in the miniscule breeze. I dropped my eyes to the boy who was playing in the dirt behind her, seeing Carl dragging a stick through the loose sand to create nonsensical images. I kept walking forward until the bulk of the RV bathed me in shade.

"Hey." She said when she was close enough, tossing her head behind her. "Keep an eye on Carl."

"Where are you going?" I asked, swallowing what little saliva I had in my mouth to try and moisten my throat.

This morning, we had had somebody come on over the CB that had caused quite a stir in camp. Amy, who had been manning the device at the time, hadn't been able to get an outgoing message to the stranger on the other end of the wave. From what I had gathered, his incoming message had been scratchy and barely audible at best. They had heard, however, that he was heading for Atlanta. For the past few weeks, we had been meaning to put signs out on Highway 85 to warn any other survivors away from the city, but we hadn't had the time to actually go and do it. Mom, at the time, had decided to push the issue to the point where she practically told Shane she was going herself. Carl, who had been standing next to me at the time, had shot me a look of pure fear at the idea of our mother traipsing out towards the city alone.

I had opened my mouth to deny her request, but Shane had beaten me to it when he had seen the looks on our faces. Of course, that pissed Mom off, and she had stomped away from the group back to her tent. That left Shane tossing us a pursed smile and quick reassurances before he had chased after her. That had been hours ago, and even though she had assured the both of us she wasn't going anywhere, I wasn't so ready to discount that she'd sneak away. Carl and I had to have learned our tendencies to not follow orders from somewhere, after all.

"Mushrooms." Was all she gave in way of explanation before continuing on with her request. "I told him to stay in earshot."

"You do the same!" Dale hollered down from his perch, overhearing our conversation since we just below him. "Keep within earshot, and yell if you need something. I'll come running."

Mom stifled a smile and rolled her eyes, muttering a brief, "Yes, Mom," under her breath to which I cracked a reluctant smile myself. Craning my neck, I made sure that Carl was where I had last seen him, and he was, intent on whatever he was doing. The thirteen-year-old was three years younger than me, but he acted so much younger. Where I was generally a rule-bender, Carl was a rule-breaker. He was disobedient in the most irritating way possible, seemingly incapable of following the slightest direction.

"'Kay." I muttered, walking around my mother and heading for the RV door that was already open. "Stay safe."

"I will." She replied after a second's silence.

I vaulted up the steps and into the narrow space, immediately turning towards the sink that had long since stopped spouting out water. Instead, we used the bone-dry divot to hold canteens of ravine water that had been boiled and purified. Usually, the sink held twelve or so canisters, but only three remained at the moment. Grabbing the first one my hand touched, I unscrewed the lid and greedily brought the container to my lips. The first few swallows were almost painful, as I tried to take in too much and only succeeded in swallowing a bubble of air that stuck in my throat uncomfortably.

After I had taken my fill, I screwed the lid back on and ducked under the long strap so I could sling it across my body. Wiping my mouth on the back of my hand, I inhaled slowly in complacency now that my tongue wasn't tacky. Turning back around, I had barely set foot on the first step before a familiar voice reached my ears.

"Working hard or hardly working, Kit?"

"The first one." I replied without turning to face the approaching voice.

"Looks like it. You mind doing me one more favor?"

This time, I did turn around. Shane stood in front of me; hands perched on his hips and his KCPD baseball cap covering his head. When everything around us had fallen to shit and been a whirlwind of chaos and destruction and death, Shane hadn't changed much. He'd been in my life for as long as I could remember and when everything started falling apart it had been nice to have a constant. And when Dad never made it out of the hospital…

I shook myself from the memory lane I had almost swerved down, deciding to focus instead on the present.

"You mean one more favor for today, right?" I asked with a strained smile, still bitter about the fact that I wasn't on the run that had left a few hours ago with my best friend. "'Cause, come tomorrow, I know there's gonna be a whole new list."

"Yep, that sounds 'bout right." Shane laughed, slapping me on the shoulder once he got close enough. "But, this one here's simple enough."

"Really?"

"Well, simple for a normal kid. You, however, seem to have a real problem grasping this concept."

The smile on my face wavered as I caught onto what he was alluding. It didn't surprise me that Mom had gone to Shane about my behavior last night, what did surprise me was that he had waited until now to reprimand me on it. He didn't make a habit of using his parenting voice on me, usually more than happy to play the cool uncle who helped me do things that I shouldn't, but since our arrival in the quarry I'd started to grow used to the thinly veiled orders and father-like advice. It was comforting to hear...but I didn't necessarily like it all that much.

"This is about my attitude, isn't it?" I asked dryly.

"It's a very certain possibility."

"Just say it."

Shane's hand encircled my arm gently and pulled me some ways away from the hustle and bustle of command central that was the RV, the amiable expression on his face fading slightly to be replaced with a serious one. I groaned internally at the swift change in his facial features as he donned his parental mask. Shane didn't have any kids of his own and before the world went to hell, settling down hadn't seemed in the cards either. For all intents and purposes, Carl and I were probably the closest to his own children as he was going to get. He'd gotten pretty good at balancing his authoritarian nature with his laidback and easygoing personality, but that also meant that he could switch them out in a blink of an eye. Swiping the hat off of his head, he put it back on quickly and I knew this was going to be a real lecture.

"I hear you've been having problems with your Ma again."

I heaved a sigh and walked backwards to plop onto one of the benches at the picnic table. If I was going to have to endure this, I might as well get comfortable. Shane followed me those few steps, and I crossed my arms before talking to him.

"Should I be surprised she went to you, _again_?" I sassed.

"Don't take that tone with me, Katherine." Shane warned, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes as I heard my full name. That was my first sign that trouble was doubtlessly coming my way. "I'm just trying to have a conversation. Why don't you tell me what's got your feathers ruffled this time?"

"This time?" I clarified. "This time, it's the both of you."

"Alright, what did _we_ do?"

"Shane, I am sixteen years old." I emphasized this point by placing my hand on my collarbone. "I should be able to decide whether or not I go on a run or not."

"Oh." Shane nodded in understanding, running his hand over his stubbly chin to hide his smile. "So, this is one of those 'I'm almost an adult and I can do what I want' speeches, isn't it?"

"Yep." I agreed, crossing my legs at the knee. "And, I don't live in the same tent as Mom, so you guys can't use the old 'you live under my roof, you live by my rules' argument."

"Clever." Shane complimented dryly. "You should have studied to be a lawyer rather than a veterinarian. And, may I remind you, that the first few times you even went on a run was behind mine and your Ma's backs. Now, that don't sound very _grown up_ to me."

Damn it. That always came back to bite me in the ass, and it wasn't the first or the last of many chunks that would go missing from my posterior in regards to my decision to use subterfuge. For a few seconds, I was forced into a grudging silence as he stared down at me expectantly, waiting to hear an argument I didn't have.

"You didn't even ask me about it." I pushed on, deciding to ignore the damnable point he had just made. "I deserve to at least argue my case before you slam the gavel and sentence me to house arrest."

"It's one run, Kit." Shane reasoned. "One run. One run you're missing, and then you and Glenn can go back to frolicking through Atlanta and giving your mother and I heart attacks."

"What if he needed me on this run?" I pressed. "What if he needed me and I wasn't there?"

"I'm sure everything is gonna be fine, sweetheart." He soothed. "He's got more than enough people to watch his back."

"More than enough people to slow him down and get him killed, is more like it." I grouched.

"Look," Shane sighed, clasping his hands together as he moved to sit next to me on the picnic bench. "The run aside, I need you to do me that favor I asked for. Just try and get along with your Mom, alright? Things are stressful enough around camp, and I know you don't want this beef between you two affecting Carl, right?"

I didn't respond, but I didn't disagree. I had worked hard at making sure that Carl didn't see the tension between me and Mom, even before the world went to hell in a hand basket. To his knowledge, Mom and Dad were hopelessly in love and happy in their marriage, and I wanted it to stay that way for him for as long as possible. Shane knew he had won this one and gave me a relaxed smile. I did roll my eyes this time, shaking my head only to wince when he was suddenly throwing an arm around my shoulders and shaking me slightly.

"Stop." I complained as he pulled me into him for a side hug. "I'm sweaty and you're sweaty and we're nasty."

"Comes with the territory." He shrugged but allowed me to squirm free anyways. "Keep an eye on Carl, would ya?"

"Already am." I muttered in irritation, frowning as he began to walk towards the woods. "Where are you going?"

He froze for a second, looking over his shoulder with something that looked similar to momentary nervousness before recovering. Huffing out a laugh that I could have sworn was strained, he bobbled his shoulder and smiled easily.

"Your Mom needed help with something. Mushrooms and what not."

"Oh." I relented. "Alright. Stay safe."

With that, he touched the brim of his baseball cap in farewell to me and headed off in the general direction I assumed Mom had disappeared in as well.

Another confusing thing about Georgia weather – it changed faster than a speeding ticket. One minute, the sun was out and beaming down on us, and the next storm clouds were gathering in the distance over Atlanta. Distant thunder boomed, reverberating the air as the humidity dramatically increased with the approaching cell. Nonetheless, it didn't stop anyone from doing their jobs…or, rather, it didn't stop anyone from sprinting madly to finish their jobs before rain came.

Laundry was quickly being removed from clotheslines, only partially dry, and being folded. Fires were being smothered, and salvageable firewood stored safely in tents where it would remain dry and usable. Families were retreating back to the vicinity of their dwellings, ready to dart under cover to avoid a sudden downpour. More often than not we were plagued with plain old cloudbursts rather than long storms, and while they were relatively short they were also unpredictably spontaneous. The cinder colored clouds could hang above you for hours or seconds before unleashing a downpour that lasted anywhere from a few minutes to the rest of the day before moving on or drying up.

I glanced across the clearing in front of the RV towards mine and Glenn's neon orange tent, only a short sprint away from the picnic table I was sitting at with Carl. Part of me wanted to slink into the tangerine nylon monster and curl up on my sleeping bag to read one of my numerous books I had collected in my time of scavenging. The other part of me didn't want to step foot in there until Glenn came back, knowing how empty and silent it would be without my friend's presence. Anyways, it was hard to keep an eye on Carl from inside the tent.

Already, I had managed to snag him as he had tried to scamper away since Mom and Shane weren't in the immediate vicinity. Clapping a hand on his shoulder seconds before he'd tried to sneak around the corner of the RV, I'd cheerfully redirected him towards the picnic table we were now seated at to join Sophia and Carol in practicing math problems. Obviously, he had tried to weasel his way out of the work by using the famous, "you're not my mom," line I was more than familiar with. However, good old Saint Carol had been within earshot and beckoned him over. Refusing me was one thing, but if Mom found out that he had denied Carol's instruction, hell would have rained down on my little brother. He knew that, and that's why he had grudgingly slunk towards the duo and taken the empty bench seat beside Carol.

Being in AP classes, and being a junior when society had collapsed, I was already beyond the teaching level of anybody in camp. That meant that I didn't have to sit through the boring school lessons imposed on the younger kids, but that also didn't mean I didn't learn. There was a bookstore in Atlanta that had textbooks for multiple grade levels and multiple subjects that was a favorite of mine to hit. Obviously, the bookstore hadn't been number one on any survivalist's checklist and the textbook section had definitely been skipped over, so I had a plethora to choose from. Usually, I stuck with plain old biology and history, occasionally straying into subjects like psychology and criminal justice when I felt like it.

The only thing was that the books were damn heavy and I could only take one or two at a time. Glenn refused to help me carry them, defending his stance by saying that "knowledge was a heavy burden to bear, and I had to bear it alone." And yet, I had caught him more than a few times with his nose buried in those exact same informative books that he had scorned. Ironic, some would say. Too fucking bad, I would reply before snatching them from his hands and occasionally smacking him in the head with the lighter tomes.

I was using what little bit of natural light was left through the storm clouds gathering over head to read some of the Wuthering Heights novel I had whimsically snatched from the bargain bin, but my attention was being pulled in numerous directions. The clanking of Dale and Jim messing with the engine of the RV just a few feet to our left, Sophia's pencil scratching on paper, Carl's complaining, Carol's attempts at explaining an equation, and Amy pacing manically behind me.

"It's late." She said for the umpteenth time, fretting. "They should've been back by now."

Now, I myself was a little concerned about Glenn and I had been for days now, but I didn't think there was any real reason to get myself worked into a tizzy just yet. Sure, they'd been gone since early this morning, but it was only late afternoon. Glenn and I had been gone longer before, and he was probably just being careful with his luggage slowing him down, and when I mean luggage I mean the newbies.

"Worrying won't make it better." Dale responded wisely, and Amy snorted derisively at the cheap advice.

Nonetheless, she finally took a seat in a nearby camping chair and crossed her arms to sulk silently to herself. An hour passed, the clouds still moving by sluggishly but they had yet to drop their load on us. Carl had long since abandoned his rudimentary school lessons as soon as Carol had freed him. Mom and Shane had returned, the former risking the still dry sky to hang some wet laundry on an abandoned line while the latter was trying in vain to teach Carl the art of knot tying. I was still trying to work my way through Wuthering Heights, determined not to abandon the novel no matter how uninteresting it was to me.

I had never given up on a book once I'd started reading it…well, okay, with the exception of Hatchet. Fifth grade, Mrs. Mayes class, we'd been assigned the book to read as an entire grade level – school wide. Even Mrs. Mayes, the academic, had barely been able to get through three chapters with us before tossing the book aside and giving us automatic A's on all of the companion quizzes and tests. She told us she wasn't going to put us, let alone herself, through the mind-numbing idiocy that was Brian Robeson trying to survive in the wilderness – what imbecile thinks it's a good idea to try and eat a porcupine?

" _Hello, base camp. Anybody out there? Base camp, this is T-Dog. Can anybody hear me?"_

My head whipped around to look over my shoulder, eyes narrowing in on the CB that was on top of the RV where we had hoped we'd get better reception in lieu of the stranger heading towards Atlanta who hadn't been able to hear our connection. I swung my legs out from under the table and saw as others mimicked me, all of us heading towards the RV's ladder which Dale was scaling rather quickly for a man his age. Shane came up beside me, as I was closest to the vehicle, and slung an arm over my shoulder with one arm as he placed his free hand on his hip. I looked over, seeing the baseball hat in his hands clenched in a white knuckled grasp. He wasn't as casual as he seemed, but I grabbed onto the wrist dangling from my shoulder nonetheless for moral support.

Why wasn't Glenn calling in? It was usually him who hung onto the radio. Where was Glenn? Was he okay? Oh, God, something happened, didn't it? Something bad. All of these thoughts flashed through my mind, and suddenly I felt as frantic as Amy had earlier. Dale grabbed the receiver, holding down the comm. button and responding as quick as he could.

"Hello? Hello?" He ventured. "Receptions bad at this end. Repeat. Repeat."

It seemed that even up on top of the RV, our radio connection was garbage. Static made its way back over the line, garbled speech unintelligible. Dale cursed under his breath before delicately turning the knobs on the base unit in search of a better signal.

"Is that them?" Mom asked from somewhere behind me.

Dale held up a finger in the universal signal to give him a moment as he twisted another knob, and then that's when T-Dog's voice returned clearer.

"… _we're in some deep shit_." He said frantically, the first part of his sentence having been cut off. " _We're trapped in the department store._ "

I felt my heart fall into my stomach, mouth opening in disbelief and panic causing the blood in my veins to freeze.

"D-Did he say they're trapped?" I asked, hoping that I had just heard wrong.

"Hey." Shane grasped my shoulder more fiercely, pulling me into him in a reassuring hug that I just barely managed to return. "Sh."

" _There are geeks all over the place, hundreds of 'em! We're surrounded!_ " T-Dog said, and it was his last sentence before the line went abruptly dead.

Static filled the air, accompanied by the roll of distant thunder as Dale frantically searched to restore the signal. Pressing the comm. button down, he spoke again.

"T-Dog, repeat that last bit." Dale ordered, sounding like he was in the same boat as me in hoping he'd heard wrong. "Repeat!"

Only the static answered him, and I felt my body wash in cold as blood roared in my ears. I realized as color bled from my vision that I was honestly about to pass out. It had only happened two other times, once when I had fallen in a hole while helping Dad put up Christmas decorations and had fractured my ankle, the other when I had a horrible strain of the flu and had been weaker than a newborn deer. I must have swayed, because suddenly Shane was lifting me by my arms and depositing me back on the bench I had occupied moments before the world had disappeared under my feet.

"Stay with me, Kit." Shane ordered, and Mom's worried face appeared beside his as she rushed forward.

"Is she okay?" I heard Carl ask faintly through the cotton in my ears, and I shook my head gently to try and dislodge it as other people began to ask their own questions.

"He said the department store." Carol supplied.

"I heard it too." Dale confirmed.

"Did they say they were surrounded?" Came another female voice I didn't right away recognize, my head bent between my knees and Shane's hand rubbing my back as I pushed back the nausea rising in my throat.

"Hundreds of Walkers." Someone else agreed.

A brief lull in conversation occurred, and I cracked my eyes open a teeny bit to see everyone looking at Shane and me – well, Shane. Lori was squatted in front of me with a cracked water bottle, her hazel green eyes just like my own flicking between me and the man sitting next to me.

"Shane." She prompted softly.

"No." Shane denied immediately. "No way."

"Shane, please." I begged thickly, understanding what it was he was refusing.

"We do not go after them." He said mechanically, shaking his head as the palpable disappointment and relief of the crowd smothered us. "We do not risk the rest of the group. I'm sorry, darlin'."

The last sentence was directed at me, and I could hear his honest regret in his tone, but it didn't make it any easier. I understood where he was coming from in a detached sort of way, but I didn't agree with it. I couldn't agree with it. It was _Glenn_ , and it was Andrea, T-Dog and Jacqui and…fuck, it was even Merle. We couldn't abandon them.

"And if I was with them?" I deadpanned, asking the hard question I knew he didn't want to answer.

Shane's dark brown eyes shuttered in a half wince, his mouth opening to say something but nothing coming out. He didn't really get the chance to before Amy was bulldozing forward with rage on her pretty face.

"So, we're just gonna leave her there?" The blonde woman fumed.

"Look, Amy." Shane turned in his seat so he was facing her. "I know this is not easy-,"

"She volunteered to go to help the rest of us." Amy interrupted.

Shane nodded, humming in agreement before speaking in a soft voice, not wanting to rile her up any more.

"I know." He conceded. "And she knew the risks, right? See, if she's trapped, she's gone. So, we just have to deal with that. There's nothing we can do."

I shook my head, rejecting the water Mom tried to put in my hand and instead using the two appendages to bury my face in. Her hand combed through my hair gently, whispering softly to me words that I either couldn't hear or didn't want to.

"She's my sister, you son of a bitch." Amy snarled before I heard the sound of her feet churning up gravel as she darted away.

I felt more than heard Shane inhale heavily before letting it out in an exhausted sigh. With the silence that passed, more footsteps joined hers as everyone dispersed.

"Go on." Shane muttered, "I got her."

It must have been Mom he was talking to because I felt her lips press against my temple before she stood up and disappeared. I didn't react much, appreciating the affection but at the same time wanting to shove everybody away and scream at the top of my lungs. I was trying so hard not to shove Shane's hand off of my back and kick him in the shin, trying so hard to refrain from yelling obscenities at him and spitting in his face. I wanted to hate him for his decision, yet I wasn't self-absorbed enough to not see the sense in it.

"Amy!" I heard Mom call faintly in the distance.

"I'm sorry, Kit." Shane said as she left. "You know I am. I know what Glenn means to you-,"

"If I was with them," I repeated my question from before, voice thick with emotion as I struggled to keep my burning eyes from dropping tears. "Would you have left me?"

"I would have marched into Atlanta to save you with nothing but the shirt on my back." He answered immediately, voice close by my ear as he hugged me into his side. "Don't even question that, darlin'. You're my girl, Kit. But, they're trapped, they said so themselves. If I had an army, it wouldn't be enough."

I nodded, sniffing and feeling my chin tremble. Shane rested his forehead on the back of my head, jostling me slightly to regain my attention that was dipping in and out from him as I pondered how awful the remainder of my short life was going to be without my best friend by my side.

"You never know, Kit." He started slowly. "I don't want to get your hopes up, but, this is Glenn we're talking about. He's a slippery son of a bitch. If anybody can get out of the shithole he's found himself, it's him."

I nodded, but I wasn't entirely sure I believed it to be honest.

I had retreated into my tent about the same time the clouds had dispersed, staring over at Glenn's side of the small compartment and letting my swollen eyes travel over his belongings.

 _He'll be back_. I kept assuring myself. _He always comes back_.

But, it was now well on its way to sundown and this was officially the longest run that either of us had partaken in. Each second that ticked by was a second more the cloud of depression over my thickened. Despite the sunshine that was beating down on the tent and bathing everything inside the bright neon color of a nectarine, I felt blacker than night inside. Amy was in the same boat as me, if not worse. Her tent was beside mine and Gle…beside mine, and I could hear her quietly sobbing inside. Mom had laid with me for a while, but after thirty minutes of me curled up despondent on the sleeping bag, she'd left defeated. From the fragmented conversation I could hear outside nearby, because both adults were vigilantly keeping an eye on me in case I did something drastic, Mom was trying to keep Carl's mind off of what had happened by torturing him with a haircut as Shane talked about southern-fried Kermit legs.

 _If anyone can get himself out of the shithole he's found himself in, it's him._

I tried to keep those words of Shane's in my head. They were true, but I had a feeling that this shithole was too deep even for Glenn. My eyes fell closed, wanting nothing more than to fall into a dreamless sleep. They popped back open a second later as images of body parts being torn apart and intestines splashing bright red on concrete flashed in my mind. More nausea rolled in my stomach, and I felt bile inching its way up my throat before I was fumbling for the water bottle Mom had left me. I popped the cap and downed half of the contents in one go, hoping to push the burning liquid back down into my stomach.

It worked, and after a few more unneeded swallows I let myself fall roughly back onto the hard ground. My head hit harder than I had expected, and I blinked back the pain as my ears echoed with a ringing that sounded more like a siren. Moments passed by before I realized that I must have hit my head harder than I thought, because the sound of ringing was still bouncing around in my head and getting louder if I wasn't mistaken…and it…sounded sort of like a car…alarm. Slowly, I lifted myself up into a sitting position and carefully listened.

My heart started to pound heavy in my chest as my hope began to blossom once again, almost painful this time like a flower trying to burst its way through concrete. Nevertheless, I was scrambling to my feet and fumbling for the tent flap. Bursting out of it, wincing in the golden setting sunlight, I watched as Shane marched quickly towards the RV with shotgun in hand. Dale was poised at the top, binoculars aimed at the meandering road that wound up the rugged trail to the quarry.

"Talk to me, Dale!" Shane ordered.

"I can't tell you yet!" Dale shouted back down.

"Wait for him to get a look at it." A man whispered to his wife who was tugging at his shirt incessantly for an answer.

I pushed through the gathering crowd towards the gap between the RV and Shane's Jeep that marked the mouth of the road.

"Is it them?" Amy asked, voice breaking as she was suddenly beside me to help push through the throng of people. "Are they back? What is it?"

"Stolen car would be my guess." Dale responded, dropping the binoculars with a look of disbelief on his face.

Sure enough, seconds later, a beautiful cherry red mustang shotgun-slid around the shallow bend in the road and came barreling towards us. My hands flew to my ears to protect them from the painfully loud bellowing of the vehicles alarm system as I tried to peer through the windshield at who was behind the wheel. The dark tint, definitely illegally done, prevented me from a clear view. Shane was beside me in a second, but I left him in the dust in the next as the door of the mustang swung open. A strangled gasp left my throat as Glenn's grinning mug appeared, baseball cap askew over his inky black hair and covered in grime, but otherwise looking unharmed. When he saw me dashing towards him, probably looking like absolute shit, the glee on his face dimmed as he opened his arms and caught me as I threw myself bodily into him.

"Oh my god." I cried, burying my face in his shirt as he returned the embrace tightly.

"I'm okay." He assured quickly, squeezing me. "I'm okay. We're all okay-,"

"Holy crap, turn that thing off!" Dale bellowed to be heard over the siren.

"I don't know how!" Glenn returned, shrugging his shoulders with difficulty as I refused to loosen my grip.

"Is Andrea-," Amy suddenly sideswiped us, her already pale face more so as she awaited the fate of her sister.

"Pop the hood-," Shane was trying to stay calm at the front of the car.

"My sister-,"

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Turn it off!"

"Pop the hood-,"

"Where is everybody?"

"But, where is Andrea-,"

"Pop the damn hood!" Shane shouted finally.

"Okay, okay!" Glenn responded to all of us frantically, and I let him untangle himself from me so he could reach inside the busted-out window and pull the lever he needed to.

The hood of the car swung up, and Jim who had been waiting patiently nearby delved into the mouth of the beast at the sacrifice of his eardrums to save everybody else's. Glenn rejoined me back outside of the car, passively letting me manhandle him as I searched for wounds just in time for the ear bleeding noise to come to a sudden halt. The lack of screeching made the quiet almost eerie, but Amy rectified that as she jumped on Glenn's shit once again.

"Is she okay?" The younger sister demanded desperately. "Is she alright?"

"Yes!" Glenn yelped. "She's fine!"

"Why isn't she with you? Where is she? She's okay?"

"Yes." Glenn said more calmly. "Yeah, fine. Everybody is fine. Well…Merle, not so much."

Any other time and I definitely would have grilled him on what the hell he meant by that, but the relief of having him standing in front of me, alive and not Walker food, was too much to handle anything else.

"Are you crazy, driving this wailing bastard up here?" Shane reprimanded harshly, leaning against the grill of the car with both hands. "Are you trying to draw every Walker for miles?"

"I think we're okay." Dale input, looking around at the mountains around us.

"You call being stupid _okay_?" Shane whirled on the old man in exasperation.

"Well, the alarm would have been echoing around all of these hills. It would be hard to pinpoint the source. I'm not arguing, I'm just saying." Dale informed calmly before turning a reprimanding look on Glenn at Shane's unimpressed look. "It wouldn't hurt you to think things through a little more carefully next time, would it?"

"Sorry." Glenn apologized awkwardly, aware of everybody's weighted stares on him. Pulling one of his limbs free from my examination, he gestured at the mustang. "I got a cool car."

Shane snorted, shaking his head and taking a few paces away from the exercised demon of a vehicle. As the excitement died down, the crowd that had gathered started to thin out a bit. I looked over Glenn's shoulder as I saw a white moving van climbing its way slowly and laboriously up the incline, probably containing the rest of the run members…with the exception of Merle, apparently, which I was going to drag from Glenn once everything settled.

With a little more privacy between Glenn and I now, I wasted no time in smacking my hand roughly against his shoulder as my fear turned to relief, which in turn was now morphing into misplaced anger.

"I could kill you!" I snapped shakily.

"Ow!" He wailed, rubbing the spot I'd assaulted.

"You could have died out there!" I retorted, drawing in shaky breaths. "You could have died!"

"Well, then killing me would be completely counterproductive." He tried to joke weakly, but at seeing my red eyes and trembling lip, he relented. A tried look overcame his youthful features. "I'm sorry."

I nodded, letting him draw me into another hug that wasn't as violent as the first one. I took the moment to compose myself, inhaling deeply before retracting from him sharply as the bile I had been repressing for what seemed like hours suddenly reemerged with force at the smell of rotting meat. I plugged my nose with my fingers, repulsed.

"Oh my God." I gagged. "What…why do you smell like rancid hamburger meat?"

A sheepish look pulled at his features, and he rubbed the back of his head with a look of "what can you do?" directed my way.

"It's a long…disgusting story." He admitted.

I decided to let it go, much more calmer and feeling whole again now that my second half was back beside me. I dragged my hands under my eyes and over my cheeks, determined to wipe away any traitorous tears that may or may not have escaped from my tear ducts before leveling Glenn with a steady look. Before I could talk, I heard the sound of a heavy metal door sliding open.

"Amy?" Andrea appeared from the back of the truck.

"Andrea!" Amy squealed, darting past me and Glenn to nearly tackle her big sister in a bear hug before breaking into a soft sob. "You scared the shit out of me!"

Jacqui and T-Dog rounded the corner next, the former supporting the latter as T-Dog appeared to be severely limping. Morales followed after them, and I heard the excited squealing of his children as they stumbled over each other to reach their father. Morales looked relieved as he scooped up Eliza and crushed Louis into him before his wife threw her arms around him and planted a big kiss on his lips. As I watched the small family reunite, a piece of my heart resonated with a dull pain that had me looking over my shoulder.

A look of poignant pain had etched its way onto Carl's face, and Mom was quick to take his hand and pull him away before dropping to her knees to talk to him. I caught Shane's eye, and now that the danger of the moment had passed, he just seemed relieved in a tired way. With his shotgun rested on his shoulder, he shot me a tentative smile, as if he wasn't sure I'd return it. I did, though, because it turned out he had been right. Glenn found his way back.

"You're okay?" I demanded for the umpteenth time upon turning my attention back to the Asian, eyes raking over Glenn's body for injury.

"Kit, I'm fine-,"

"Are you sure? Did you check?" I grabbed one of his arms once again, lifting it and studiously tracing over his pale skin with my eyes. "I told you I should have come. I leave you for one run and shit hits the fan."

"I'm glad you didn't." Glenn extracted his limb from my iron grip, planting his hands on my shoulders instead and giving me a small shake. "We almost didn't make it out of there."

"How did y'all get out?" Shane questioned.

"New guy." Glenn answered.

"New guy?" Shane repeated with wariness in his voice.

That perked my figurative ears as well, and I furrowed my brown at my Korean friend even though it was Morales who answered the unspecific question. With his beefy arms still encircling his family, he nodded in agreement with Glenn's statement.

"Yeah." He nodded, arm still around his wife as he held one of his kids. "Crazy vato just got into town. Hey, Helicopter Boy! Come say hello!"

Helicopter Boy? That's an unfortunate nickname.

"The guy's a cop, like you." Morales went on in explanation as he waited for his new friend to make an appearance.

Curiosity had me looking over Glenn's shoulder, but shock kept me staring and made my jaw go slack. Oh my God. I felt faint for the fourth time in my life, the second time today, as I met familiar ice blue eyes, the glint of the sun catching on a familiar gold Sheriff's badge and throwing it back into my own eyes. Oh my God. I grabbed onto Glenn's shirt to steady myself as I saw my surprise, disbelief, grief and awe reflected back at me. Oh my God.

"Dad?" It choked in my throat, coming out like a frog's croak before I repeated it. "Daddy?"

It couldn't be him, part of me sneered in derision. He was dead. Mom said he was dead. Shane said he was dead. But, he was here, standing in front of me looking as pale as a ghost. For a heart-stopping moment, I thought that maybe it was a Walker or some horrific apparition my mind had conjured up to torment me with. It had to be, because he looked just the same as he had before the gunshot. Maybe a little more tired, a little paler, but the same. His face wasn't clean shaven, his uniform was wrinkled and sweat stained, but…it was Dad.

He saw me first, and I saw as the same emotions flickering through me reflected in his own cerulean orbs. He raised his arm weakly as if to point at me before his hand covered his mouth, a strangled noise leaving his throat. I was running a second later, shoving past Glenn with newfound fervor.

My long legs ate up the ground as I took off at a dead sprint towards him, and I faintly heard Carl behind me echoing my cries of amazement, but I was more focused on Dad as he held his arms open to me. I slammed into him hard, and for a moment I thought we were about to topple over backwards, but he stood strong and simply wrapped his arms tightly around me in an almost rib crushing embrace. I heard him sobbing, the reverberation of them echoing in his chest and almost covered by my own. Gasping, I stared unseeingly over his shoulder as he continued to goosestep us forward before releasing me with one arm to halfway stoop.

Suddenly, Carl appeared beside me, held aloft with his legs around Dad's waist and Dad's arm clutching his smaller body into him. Then, a heavy weight struck me right in the back, and Mom was joining in and sandwiching me in a parent PB&J. The blurriness in my eyes disappeared as tears overfilled my eyelids, streaking down my face and leaving wet tracks in their wake. I didn't bother to try and hide them this time.


	3. Chapter 3: Problems Ahead

A quarter of our ragtag group of survivors was gathered around a campfire that flickered in the cold wind, already low flames dimming down more. I pulled my flannel tighter around me but I was already decently warm tucked under Dad's right arm. Carl was to my left, reclining against the man's chest with a blanket pulled up to his chin, and Mom was leaning into his left shoulder with her eyes closed. Glenn was on my other side, sitting in his usual spot on the log a little ways away from me, but still close enough so that I could see him. That part was important. While I was too exhausted to contribute to the conversation at hand, I was making damn sure too periodically check and make sure that both Glenn and Dad were both very much still there. I felt like the whole situation was too good to be true.

"Disoriented." Dad answered Dale's question with one word, nodding his head. "I guess that comes closest. Fear, confusion, all of those things, but disoriented comes closest."

My cold fingers were intertwined with my father's as I leaned into him and relished every word he spoke. His voice had never been anything special; he had the normal southern twang of a Georgia native yet couldn't hold a note to save his life. He even made nursery rhymes cringe worthy. And yet, for so long, I had believed I'd never hear his voice again for as long as I lived. Right now, it was melodic. I looked upwards into the impossibly black sky as thunder rumbled, the storm still hanging around. I dreaded the thought of a possible thunderstorm during the night. It was one thing for it to storm when you could still see, and it was something else for it to storm when it was dark and most of the camp was sleeping. You couldn't hear moans or groans, couldn't see shuffling bodies, wouldn't even know if there were Walkers until they were on you.

"Words can be meager things." Dale commented, setting down his cup of stale coffee. "Sometimes they fall short."

"I felt like I'd been ripped out of my life and put somewhere else. For a while, I thought I was trapped in some…coma dream, something I might not get to wake up from ever." Dad went on, and Mom pressed her face into his shoulder as his tone turned somewhat darker, a little more emotional.

I looked down as Carl shifted noisily, the plastic sound of his jacket unnatural amongst the symphony of chirping crickets, crackling fire, and branches snapping somewhere in the woods.

"Mom said you died." He said quietly.

I inhaled sharply, pressing my lips together and wishing that he had kept his little mouth shut. There would be plenty of time to discuss the whole mess our family was later, but not tonight. Mom's face took on an unhealthy pallor as she looked up at her husband, petting Carl's head with her mouth open as she helplessly tried to come up with a response. Dad looked back at her gently before nodding his head and turning to Carl.

"She had every reason," He assured, looking at me next. "Every reason, to believe that. Don't you ever doubt it."

I didn't, not in the slightest. Shane had told Mom, and I had happened to be eavesdropping at the time. Not really eavesdropping, as we were all in a vehicle at the time, but faking sleep probably wouldn't be well received as an excuse. They had been murdering people in the hallway, the power had shut off. The machines keeping Dad alive had malfunctioned. He didn't have a heartbeat. I don't know what it was, gunfire or maybe his own adrenaline, but I know without a doubt that Shane would _never_ have walked out of that hospital if he had thought his partner was alive.

"When things started to get really bad, they told me at the hospital that they were gonna med-evac you and the other patients to Atlanta…and it never happened." Mom tried to fill in the blank spots that Dad probably didn't know.

"Well, I'm not surprised. After Atlanta fell…and from the look of that hospital, it got overrun." Dad nodded, a haunted look clouding his bright eyes for a moment as he was dragged back into a memory.

"Well, looks don't deceive. I barely got them out, you know?" Shane said quietly, elbows on his knees as he sat directly opposite from us across the fire.

"I can't tell you how grateful I am to you, Shane." Dad said strongly, the sincere emotion in his words carrying how true he meant them. "I can't begin to express it."

"There go those words falling short again." Dale filled in the silence. "Paltry things."

I jumped at the sound of wood being thrown into a fire pit, something I shouldn't have heard since it was common knowledge that we kept our fires as low as possible, on order of Shane. The only two men that were careless enough to go against Shane's rules were none other than Merle and Ed. Since Merle wasn't…well, it had to be Ed. Looking past Dad and Mom, my eyes were drawn to the cone of beautiful cherry red embers that had surged into the air. Sure enough, the Peletier family sat a few meters away around their own heat source, Carol and Sophia curled in next to each other as Ed tossed yet another piece into the fire.

"Hey, Ed. You wanna rethink that log?" Shane called to the man, mindful to keep his voice just audible enough so as to not draw unwanted attention.

Heads turned on a swivel to watch the confrontation from every corner of the camp that had caught wind of the budding argument. I did as well, shamelessly. We didn't have television anymore, after all. Everyday life was sort of like a horror movie marathon, so a little Georgia Housewives drama was welcome addition until I found something to replace Dr. Phil and Food Network. It might be the apocalypse and it might have robbed us of our daily comforts of life, but the end of the world would never change the fact that people loved drama.

"It's cold, man." Ed said back lazily, head lolling against the back of his chair in the perfect picture of ease. Carol and Sophia let out minute coughs as a billow of smoke smacked into them.

"The cold don't change the rules, does it?" Shane inquired. I felt Dad's chin brush against the top of my head as he turned to face his friend. "We keep our fires low, just embers, so we can't be seen from a distance, right?"

"I said its cold." Ed said bluntly, challenging the undisputed leader of the group. "You should mind your own business for once."

A grim feeling settled in my stomach and I shook my head. There was always one in every crowd: the rabble-rouser. Shane stood up quickly and stalked over towards the other man's fire, patting him on the shoulder as he passed. It was an outwardly friendly gesture with hidden aggression underlying it. The way he was invading Ed's personal space made it seem like he was practically daring the man to do something about it. I quirked an eyebrow. Almost immediately following Dad's unexpected return, Shane had begun acting strange, and so had Mom, but he seemed more…unsettled. He seemed restless, like there was too much energy in his body and too much going on in his mind.

"You sure you wanna have this conversation, man?" Shane said in a deadly quiet voice.

Ed sized him up for a minute, calculating his chances of winning a fight with Shane Walsh, especially now that he had his partner back. It didn't seem to be a hard decision for him to make. Shoulders jerking in a silent huffing laugh, Ed threw his arm carelessly. Scratching the back of his neck, he jerked his head at Carol as if the whole thing was putting him out.

"Go on, pull the damn thing out." He ordered.

Carol did as she was told, hopping up and reaching quickly into the flames to pull the smoldering log out. Shane glared at Ed in disgust before stamping the blazing wood out, kicking it aside in the dirt. Kneeling down, he turned back to the girls with a calmer attitude.

"Hey, Carol, Sophia. How are y'all this evening?"

"Fine." Carol said sharply, defensively. "We're just fine."

"Okay." Shane soothed.

"Sorry about the fire." Carol apologized in a whisper soft voice, the hard tone she had adopted previous melting away.

"No, no, no. No apology needed." Shane strained a smile. "Ya'll have a good night, ok?"

"Thank you." Carol whispered.

He stood up, ready to walk away, but not before leaving with one last scathingly sarcastic remark.

"Appreciate the cooperation." He growled to Ed.

Walking back over, he sat down in the same spot as before. An uneasy silence followed his return, and everyone shot each other unreadable looks across the campfire. I knew some didn't agree with Shane's brusque and razor-sharp disposition, but they had to admit that it got the job done and kept things at camp running somewhat smoothly. They all had to _appreciate_ that, in the very least.

"Has anyone given any thought to Daryl Dixon?" Dale asked suddenly, diverting our attention from one uncomfortable topic to another. "He won't be happy to hear his brother was left behind."

Oh, God. I hadn't even considered Daryl, to be honest. Relief at Glenn being back and the disbelief of knowing that my father was alive had all but pushed everything else out of my mind.

"I'll tell him." T-Dog volunteered, looking worse for wear as bruises appeared vividly against his dark skin in the uneven firelight. "I dropped the key, it's on me."

"I cuffed him. That makes it mine." Dad denied, responsibility for his actions and guilt noticeable in his tone.

"It's not a competition." I interrupted with a snort, feeling the faint stirring of bitterness arising in me as when Glenn had explained what had happened on the run to me in the safety of our tent.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't exactly a Merle fan by any means. He tolerated me, I tolerated him, and that was it. The world continued to spin, the seasons changed, cats and dogs continued to live in separate houses. We weren't friends, we were barely even acquaintances. But he was still one of us. He was part of our group. He had helped protect this place, had helped provide for it. He was still a human being…a pain in the ass, but a human nonetheless. It bothered that bleeding heart part of me that he had been left behind. I hated that part of me. It always seemed to get me in trouble.

"I don't mean to bring race into this, but…well, it might sound better coming from a white guy." Glenn interjected.

"I did what I did." T-Dog swallowed. "Hell if I'm gonna hide from him."

"You probably should." I admitted, eyeing his busted face and guessing that Daryl would probably add to it if the blame landed on T-Dog.

"We could lie." Amy suggested after a brief pause.

"Or tell the truth. Merle was out of control, something had to have been done, or he would have gotten us all killed." Andrea looked over at Mom. "Your husband did what was necessary. And if Merle got left behind, it is nobody's fault but Merle's."

I made a noise in the back of my throat, twitching uncomfortably at the blasé inflection she used. Attention went to me as I started to speak, feeling Dad's fingers squeeze mine. I was a little shocked at the insensitivity upon their realization they left a man to be eaten alive on a rooftop. I suppose I hadn't been wrong in thinking the apocalypse had stolen from us, but I hadn't considered our morality to be one of the comforts that had been stripped away just yet. It had barely been a couple of months. Basic decency, at least, should still be kicking.

"You're talking about somebody's brother." I said in a strong voice, my breath billowing out in front of me in a cloud. "Somebody's family. Sure, he may have been a pain in our collective asses but he was still important to someone. I think we _all_ need to keep that in mind."

And it was back again, the tense silence that follows when people realize they've been scolded by a sixteen year old girl…and the girl is right. Dad's arm tightened around me should in a side hug, and I hoped it was a hug more of approval than one meant to tell me to shut my mouth. I leaned further into him either way.

"I don't see a rational discussion happening from any of this." Shane admitted, breaking the quiet.

"Word to the wise," Dale sighed. "We're going to have our hands full when he gets back from his hunt."

"I was scared and I ran." T-Dog said suddenly. "I'm not ashamed of it."

"We were all scared, we all ran." Andrea said in confusion. "What's your point?"

"I stopped long enough to chain that door."

Holy _shit_. That was some information that probably should have been shared a few hours ago, don't you think, T? I stared at him wide eyed through the short flames, but he was busy looking at his hands.

"The staircase is narrow, maybe half a dozen Geeks can squeeze against it at any one time. It's not enough to break through that, not that chain and not that lock." T-Dog's voice faded into silence. "My point? My point is Dixon's alive. And he's still up there, handcuffed to that roof. That's on us."

After that conversation, we all called it a night. The rollercoaster of emotions we'd all experienced was exhausting, and I was more than ready to slip into my sleeping bag and fall into a deep sleep. The only highlight after T-Dog's admission had been the look on Dad's face when he asked why I wasn't heading to the same tent as Mom and Carl.

"She sleeps in that orange tent a few down from us." Mom had answered for me. "Her and Glenn share it."

I glared at her half-heartedly for adding that last part, knowing it was completely unnecessary and only inflammatory information. As expected, Dad's eyebrows had nearly disappeared into his hairline in disbelief. Damage control.

"Thanks, Mom." I sighed before giving her a short hug goodnight and ruffling Carl's hair. "Calm down, Dad. He's a decade too old for me and a little too much like an older brother. It would practically be…I don't know, like incest."

With that, I had departed for sweet dreams, yet Glenn and I couldn't get comfortable that night. The tent seemed too small for two people and yet I felt like a mile of space separated the two of us, the night was too cold to not cover up, but I felt feverish underneath my covers. I lay on my sleeping bag, throwing off my blankets to keep from sweating, but feeling oddly cold once I did. Glenn turned fitfully on his own sleeping bag, throwing an arm over his eyes before rolling onto his stomach.

Every time I closed my eyes, I imagined Merle stuck up on that roof. It had been only a day, but growing up in Georgia I knew it only took a few hours of constant sun exposure before heat exhaustion set in. Dehydration, weakness, dizziness, vomiting, I'd gone through the whole experience myself before on a fieldtrip to Andersonville Prison my freshman year. In the excitement of exploring the old Civil War era prison, I had forgotten to keep myself hydrated and cool on that hot summer day. I had actually collapsed in one of the interrogation cells, which of course sparked the rumor amongst my classmates that I'd been attacked by the spirit of a restless Union soldier seeking revenge. At the time, I had been sure that I was dying. The world had faded away as I'd fainted, turning black and white and the ground rushing towards me as I fell. I don't remember hitting the ground, but when I woke up in the hospital I had been informed that I'd received a minor concussion.

Rolling onto my side, facing away from Glenn, I yanked the blanket back over me and threw it over my head. Utter darkness met my eyes, blacking out the faint glow of the lamp we kept on the lowest setting just in case of a midnight emergency. Nonetheless, I squeezed my eyes shut and started counting backwards from five hundred, an old trick my therapist had taught me for the nights my restless mind got the better of me. _499, 498, 497, 496, 495, 494, 493, 492, 491, 491, 489, 488, 487…_

The morning came much too early, light bathing the inside of the tent a headache-inducing orange color as it filtered past the nylon. I wasn't sure what time it was, something that had at first bothered me about this new way of life, but from the noises outside it seemed clear the day was already in full swing. Very few people managed to sleep past the rising of the sun, that is even if they managed to sleep at all. There were some nights when it wasn't my insomnia that kept me awake, rather the contest crackling of leaves or rustling of branches. Somebody rolling over in their sleeping bag sounding like hisses, or another person's faint snoring morphing in my head into the snarls of a Walker.

Conversations chattered away all around us, the sound of running footsteps shaking the ground as a stampede of children ran past nearby. I took in a noisy inhale and stretched, a small whine leaving my throat as I did. A groan answered me from directly behind, my elbow making contact with flesh. I turned my head slightly to see Glenn's back pressed against mine. It wasn't an odd occurrence to wake up and find us back to back, drawn towards one another in the night by the heat the other produced. I drove my elbow backwards again, this time a little firmer and making sure it dug into his ribs. He groaned louder, trying to push himself away from me.

"Get up." I yawned once more, distorting my words. "I'm pretty sure we overslept."

"I'm still in the process of oversleeping." He informed me groggily, rolling back onto his sleeping bag and putting distance between us again. He threw his blanket over his head. "Leave me alone."

With a little more constitution than my friend, I pushed myself into a sitting position and rubbed my hands fiercely across my face before delving them into my hair. They stayed there, halted by knots and holding my head up as I prepared myself to face the day. I knew I had bathed just a couple of days ago, and yet my head was already starting to feel heavy with grease and dirt. I shuddered in disgust at myself, snapping a hair tie off of my wrist and sloppily piling all of the loose strands into a bun at the top of my head. However, as I sat there summoning the courage to face the world, I heard a noise that wasn't unusual for the camp. The sound of clanging metal, so obvious and loud now that I pinpointed it, rang through the quarry. I furrowed my brow, staring at the zipped door of the tent. This was different somehow, though. I couldn't pinpoint it, but –

"Glenn." I prompted, reaching across and shoving his leg.

He kicked back at me fitfully. "I told you to-,"

"Shut it." I interrupted. "You hear that?"

He froze, motionless under his blanket as he listened for what I was referring to. Suddenly, his head popped out of the blanket like a turtle exiting its shell. His dark eyes clashed with mine with something akin to panic before he was kicking himself free and scrambling for his pants.

"The car." He panted, shoving his feet into a pair of jeans and unfortunately pulling them on backwards.

The cherry red, beautiful Ford Mustang he'd brought back from Atlanta – the wailing banshee that had nearly earned him a pop in the mouth from Shane yesterday. Of course, they were stripping it of parts – the thing probably guzzled gas like a frat boy did cheap beer. That didn't mean I was okay with it, because I had been expecting Glenn to take me for a spin in the thing at least once before it met its demise. I'd never even been around a car that nice, let alone having sat in the front seat of one. The sound of clanging tools brought me to my feet as well, shoving them into my boots and throwing a nearby flannel over the tank top I'd worn to sleep. The destruction had to be stopped before it was too late. I was decently sure I could convince Dale, who was probably leading the strip down, into postponing for at least an hour or so.

Glenn unzipped the tent and stumbled out, me close on his heels as we made our way across camp to where the small procession of vehicles were stashed. No sooner than we broke through the line of tents did we falter, twin noises of disappointment pulling out of our throats at the travesty we stumbled upon. We were too late. Jim and Dale had double teamed it, the tires gone and the hood popped open to reveal the engine block which was startlingly empty. The gas container in Dale's hand let me know that they'd already siphoned out all the gasoline as well. Glancing in Glenn's direction, I felt my disappointment fade some and nearly laughed at the horror on his face. Almost.

"No." He moaned, hand over his mouth for a brief moment like he was holding back vomit. "Why?"

Dale shot him a friendly smile as he approached us, not looking apologetic at all. I placed a consolingly hand on my friend's back.

"Look at them." Glenn spit in disgust. "Vultures. Yeah, go on. Strip it clean!"

"Generators need every drop of fuel they can get." Dale defended as he passed us. "Got no power without it. Sorry, Glenn."

"Look, maybe you'll get to steal another one someday." I comforted.

The look Glenn shot me was insulted. "She's not even cold yet, Kit. I thought I'd get to drive her at least a few more days."

"At least you had the chance to drive her." I pointed out. "I didn't even get to rev the engine."

A hand touched my back and caused my head to whip around, only to beam when I realized it was Dad. He looked like he had just woken up himself, eyes crusted with sleep and dark shadows hanging under his blue eyes like crescent moons. He'd traded out his police uniform in favor of a plain t-shirt and some hard-washed jeans, looking startlingly like he did on his days off before the fall of civilization. I almost expected to see him with a cup of coffee in one hand and a copy of the local newspaper in the other.

"Hey, Dad." I greeted, not forgetting for a moment that I never thought I'd say it again.

"For the safety of everyone in this camp, I am personally glad that you will never sit behind that wheel." He teased, pressing a kiss against my temple.

When Glenn snorted, I felt my cheeks heat up a little bit.

"I wasn't that bad of a driver." I defended before snapping as he laughed. "Seriously!"

"She took out our neighbor's mailbox the first time she pulled out of the driveway." Dad explained to Glenn who stifled a cackle when I gave him a shove.

"I'm glad you're here, Rick." Glenn said seriously. "You see, I have a lot of questions about Kit, here, and I think you're just the man to answer them-,"

"If all you're gonna do is embarrass me in front of my friends, then we're leaving." I sniped to Dad, grabbing Glenn's shirt and pulling the both of us in the opposite direction.

Even as I marched away from my father, embarrassed and irritated, the smile on my lips couldn't be erased. It was good – it was _great_ to have him back. Glenn and I eventually went our separate ways, each of us having things we needed to do. After returning to our tent to trade in my pajama pants for the jeans I wore yesterday, I went about my chores. I'd slept too late to run the quarry, but that didn't mean I'd slept too late to get out of obligations. I bundled up all of my dirty clothes and Glenn's too, dropping them in one of the baskets by the RV that was already practically overflowing. Today was probably going to be a laundry day. I tidied up the tent, restocked the firewood piles beside the blackened firepits, yanked the clothes off of the clothesline to give to Mom to fold, and finally took a break for some lunch since I'd missed breakfast.

I had just popped the last of my cashews in my mouth, chasing them with a gulp of water, when Shane pulled up in his Jeep, looking like he had just enjoyed an early morning drive around the neighborhood. In reality, he'd driven down to the quarry to fill up the massive water jugs he was hauling in the cargo space of his Jeep. It was a blessing have the quarry so close. Our camp went through water like crazy – bathing, cooking, drinking, washing dishes, and the like.

"Water's here, y'all! Just a reminder to boil before use." He shouted to all as he swung out of his seat.

Wiping my salty hands on my pants, I darted forward to help. He saw me coming and flashed me a grin, waiting a moment so that I could grab the opposite side of the jug and help him lug it out of the back. Not that he needed the help, seeing as he'd gotten them up in the bed of the truck just fine by himself, but I knew he'd appreciate the effort. Sure enough, he flashed me a charming smile as I approached and thanked me. Together, we hauled the heavy metal jugs off the Jeep's shallow bed and frog-walked it over to the firepit.

"Morning, Sleeping Beauty." He greeted, shuffling sideways like I was as we moved with our cargo towards the closest firepit.

"You're so funny, Shane." I said sarcastically. "You should have been a comedian instead of a police officer."

"Bend with your knees, Kit." Shane corrected me as I bent at my waist to drop the jug. "And sarcasm is the lowest for of wit."

"Only not funny people say that."

"Well, that makes me quite the contradiction, don't it?"

I flicked my eyes up to his, seeing his dark orbs glowing with amusement as he sucked me into an argument that was too idiotic to even continue. He knew it too, waiting for me to say something else and add to the mess of a conversation. I decided not to give him the satisfaction. Instead, I smiled at him and moved to grab the next jug. He clucked his tongue at me and rejoined the effort, both of us hauling up before waddling sideways the few feet to drop next to the other one. No sooner had we sat it down, I caught sight of Eliza and Sophia. Unfortunately, they'd caught sight of me too and were darting over towards me. I winced as I saw them coming, knowing what was about to happen. Part of me was curious as to whether I could drop down quick enough and hide under the Jeep.

"Katie, come play with us!" Sophia encouraged, snagging my hand with her tiny one with surprising strength that I couldn't shake off.

"We're playing tag!" Eliza added.

Carl and Louis stood some way off with another young boy, Marcus, as the twins Juliette and Naomi joined Eliza in egging me on. Words couldn't explain how much I truly didn't want to, and I knew it showed on my face. However, these kids were not to be denied. I still tried, though.

"I can't." I shook my head, forcing a regretful look on my face. "I'm helping Shane with-,"

"You know what, Kit?" Shane interrupted me, leaning against the Jeep's taillight. "I got this all under control. Why don't you run off now, play a little? You could use the break."

My green eyes clashed with his dark ones, oozing betrayal and disbelief. I knew very well that _he_ knew it was nearly noon and I'd woken up all but thirty minutes ago, therefore I was definitely not in need of a break. The girls squealed in excitement at the news as I tried to salvage my scapegoat.

"No, really." I denied, grinning dryly. "I want to help, Shane."

"Don't worry about it, sweetheart." Shane continued to brush off, grabbing the next keg and hauling it down with only minor difficulty. "See? It's all under control. Go on, now."

I didn't have much choice seeing as Sophia and Eliza would have ripped my arms off if I'd tried to remain where I had been any longer. Still glaring at Shane, I allowed the girls to jerk me away from the campfire and towards the wooded area where less people congregated, leaving more room for the kids to run around without wrecking anything. Jacqui was watching from the tree-line as we approached, a hand over her brow to block the sunlight. I could see the smirk on her face as I was abducted by the children. Yeah, laugh it up, Jacqui.

We'd hardly walked under the dappled shade of the tree canopy when Sophia's hand smacked me on the back with surprising force. I winced, arching away from her as she squealed. "You're it!"

Seven kids split away from me faster than I could have imagined, darting between the trees but still staying close. They knew better than to go near the strung cans that marked the borders of the camp, let alone to go past them. I inhaled a longsuffering sigh before letting out my breath in a rush. The only thing I could do was play the game and end it quick. I darted towards Carl first, but the boy sidestepped me and swung back towards Eliza. I made a big deal of stumbling and trying to right myself. The truth was, I had played softball in high school. This was pretty much a piece of cake. Spinning, I lunged at Sophia as she tried to spin around a tree, grabbing the younger girl and lifting her into the air with little difficulty.

"Gotcha!" I taunted as she let out a joyously shocked squeal.

I dropped her on the ground and she immediately went for one of the other kids, never a sore-loser. I felt a little guilty at how quick I'd caught her. These kids didn't get to have a lot of fun. Steeling myself, I forced my brain to accept the fact that I was going to have to try harder to suck at this. As Sophia went after Carl and I half-heartedly followed after the swarm of children at a slow jog, I heard a scream that I identified as Jacqui's. Everyone froze, heads whipping around in the direction of the noise. My hand had darted to my knife as I spun to find her, my free hand held out to keep the children behind me at bay. She was rapidly backpedaling away from a small copse of trees in the direction of the strung cans to the east, pulling Eliza with her. A Walker stumbled out from the underbrush, reaching for them hungrily.

"Back to camp!" I shouted at the kids that remained near me, my voice nearly lost under their terrified screams as they did just that.

My heart felt like it was about to pop out of my chest as I threw a single look over my shoulder to make sure the children, more specifically Carl, had done as I'd said. Thankfully, all I saw were their backs as they sped away back towards the safety of camp. I turned back towards the Walker and the living. I wasn't too worried about the undead creature catching up to Jacqui and Eliza as they darted towards me. It was much too slow and they were running like hell was on their heels.

"I got it." I assured Jacqui as she paused just behind me, Eliza huddled protectively in her arms.

She nodded before urging Eliza in front of her back to the camp. I stared at the Rotter stumbling towards me. He was slow but big, meaning that he'd have to get a lot lower for me to get him in the head. I clenched the handle of the knife in my hand, exhaling slowly and letting him come to me. His arms stretched out for me but I stepped to the side, watching him stumble. It was eerily similar to the way I had dramatically stumbled while playing earlier. Before he could turn back towards me, I sent a hard kick to his kneecap.

The blow easily popped his patella out of place, snapping the compromised leg nearly in two. The Walker dropped into a kneeling position and I reached my left hand forward, grabbing him by the collar of the dirty shirt to keep him steady before plunging the knife into the softest part of the cranium I knew: the eye socket. It was effective, if not a little messy. I yanked the knife free as the now re-dead thing fell as deadweight, taking a few steps backwards and craning my head to make sure that no other ones had been lured in by the screams.

I froze as I heard the sound of another Walker past the singing birds and wind-rustled branches, this time a feasting one. My mind immediately flew to the worst-case scenario and I tried to count the number of kids that I had sent back to camp. Fear clawed at me as I swiftly and quietly made my way towards the noise, ducking under the line of cans and feeling sweat dampen my upper lip. I stopped when the noise was right in front of me, peering through a tangle of bushes. I swallowed thickly. The dead body of a deer laid on the ground, a Walker leaning over it as it bit into the long and elegant neck. Arrows were stuck into the rump of the animal, letting me know that the Walker hadn't been the creature that ended its life. Relief choked me for a moment as I realized it wasn't one of the kids or someone else from camp. Rapidly approaching footsteps behind me alerted me to the presence of the rest of the group, but I didn't dare take my eyes off of the monster.

"Kit, get back!" I heard Dad order.

Not a problem. I stepped aside and let the reinforcements skirt rush by and circle the eating Walker. Glenn, Dad, Shane, Morales, Jim, and Dale stared at the Walker in a mixture of disgust and curiosity. A hand grabbed my shoulder firmly, diverting my attention to the owner of said hand.

"Are you alright?" Dad asked me quietly, looking as fearful as I had felt moments before.

"Yeah." I assured breathlessly, my knife still clenched in my hand in case the occasion arose. "I…I thought it had one of the kids."

The Walker was too concerned with eating to realize the wall of human flesh encircling it. I shuddered as it obliviously continued snacking away. It wasn't watching it dig into the deer that made my skin crawl, it was the noises that the thing was emitting. Smacks and snarls and growls, the sound of tearing flesh and groans of hunger. My arms prickled painfully with gooseflesh despite the warmth of the afternoon.

"Oh my god."

I jerked around at the unexpected voice and saw Amy and Andrea had followed with the war party. They didn't seem as fearless as the men, though. Both women were staring in revulsion at the Walker, looking horrified and yet grotesquely entranced at the same time. At the sound of Amy's exclamation, the Walker finally took notice of the circle of people surrounding it. Rising to its feet, it let out an inhuman roar. Dad landed the first hit, rearing back his ice pick and swinging. The long iron rod slammed into its shoulder and sent it stumbling. It careened towards Shane who smashed the butt of his shotgun into it face. Glenn's pipe caught it under the chin and it hit the ground hard. The men went at it like it was a piñata. To be honest, although the sight of the Walker was less than appealing, watching it get pummeled was oddly satisfying.

Dale ended the brutal beatdown by bringing his axe arcing downward and decapitating the Rotter at the neck. The body hit the ground and the head thunked down behind it, rolling towards me before stopping barely a foot or so away from my feet. I wrinkled my nose in distaste, taking a single step backwards to put a somewhat more comfortable distance between it and me.

"These are the first we've had up here." Dale panted, his axe dripping black and rancid blood onto the ground. "They never come this far up the mountain."

"Well, they're running out of food in the city." Jim told us.

I winched sharply before letting out a small groan. "That makes a disturbing amount of sense."

"So, what do we-,"

Rustling leaves and approaching footsteps had everyone on edge once again. Conversation cut of abruptly and weapons were hoisted into the air. In a mere second, everyone was ready for another fight. I was no different. Shane raised his shotgun in the direction of the coming figure, not yet visible but the noise it was making letting us all know roughly where it was hidden in the underbrush. It tramped closer and closer, sticks breaking and leaves crunching and then it broke free from the foliage…and it wasn't a Walker. Daryl appeared suddenly, barely recoiling at the gun in his face.

"Jesus." Shane hissed, lowering the weapon quickly and pinching his eyes closed.

If Daryl was fazed by having a shotgun leveled between his eyes, he didn't show it. In fact, he hardly seemed to notice. His attention – and anger – was swiftly redirected towards the poor, mangled deer and the beheaded Walker.

"Son of a bitch!" Daryl hopped over a boulder that was in his way and walked towards his kill. "That _my_ deer!"

I watched the younger Dixon stalk forward with an angry swagger, face contorted in anger as he circled the doe and came to stop in front of the body of the Walker.

"Look at it, all gnawed on by this filthy, disease-bearing, motherless, poxy bastard!" He enunciated each adjective with a kick to the Walker's ribs.

"Calm down, son. That's not helping." Dale tried to diffuse the situation. Wrong move.

"What do you know about it, old man?" Daryl got up in Dale's face. "Why don't you take that stupid hat and go back to On Golden Pond?"

I was honestly surprised to see Daryl this worked up without Merle there to egg him on. He must have really labored hard to get the animal in front of us because he was hardly ever this confrontational. Or maybe he sensed something was wrong. Sibling intuition was a powerful thing. No sooner than he'd lunged toward Dale, he was taking a deep breath and turning back around to regard his prey.

"I've been tracking this deer for miles. Gonna drag it back to camp, cook us up some venison. You think we can cut around this chewed up part?"

"Man, I would not risk that." Shane whistled through his teeth.

"That's a damn shame." Daryl sighed, patting the string of hanging rodents strung from his belt. "Got about a dozen squirrel, that'll have to do."

The head by my feet jerked, its jaw opening and closing. I took another step back as its milky blue eyes rolled and locked onto mine, empty and hungry. Amy gave a choked mutter behind me and I heard her and Andrea swiftly retreat back to camp. Daryl rolled his eyes as he pinpointed the noise.

"C'mon, people. What the hell?" He raised his crossbow and shot a bolt right into the separated head. I prided myself in not recoiling as the projectile thunked into its target. Dad, who was standing just beside me, made a noise of discontent and looked a little irked that the hunter would have shot a bolt so close to me. I touched his arm calmingly, knowing that if Daryl thought he couldn't make the shot, he wouldn't have done it. "It's gotta be the brain. Don't y'all know nothing?"

He yanked his arrow free and breezed past all of us without a second word or glance. Those of us still remaining in the group all shared a collective look of apprehension and resignation. The conversation with Daryl about his brother wouldn't be pretty.


	4. Chapter 4: Laundry Brawl

Daryl's explosive meltdown had been both terrifying and heartbreaking, in that order. Everyone had circled around the two men like it was some sort of circus act as Dad had tried to explain what went down in Atlanta. Step right up and watch the animalistic Daryl Dixon rip the newcomer, Rick Grimes, into tiny pieces with his bare hands. There had most definitely been a better way to handle it, that much was clear to me. They should have taken him aside, away from the group and the prying eyes. Everyone staring him down had alone been enough to put him on edge. Suspicious blue eyes had swept and glared at us all as we'd gathered to watch. The anger had been the first real emotion he showed, then disbelief. Anguish and defeat were the last ones, emotions so foreign and out of place on the man's face that it unsettled me.

And then Dad announced he was going back.

I had nothing against Merle Dixon, personally. Was he a good guy? Well, no. Did he deserve to bake to death under the intense Georgian sun, his brain frying like an egg on pavement? To my knowledge, limited as it was, no. He didn't deserve that. That being acknowledged, was his life worth more than that of my father's? No. Not even fucking close. Never in a million years. I'd told Dad as much, but he'd only been able to give me a sympathetic smile and soft assurances that everything would be fine – this was something he needed to do, his conscience wouldn't let him leave Merle there to die, and so on. I couldn't see it.

I looked up from helping Carol fold laundry at the sound of a tent behind me zipping open. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Dad emerging from the tent dressed in his deputy uniform. Shane was waiting for him just outside, face grim and immediately opening his mouth when his friend neared him. I swallowed thickly but returned to folding the shirt in my hands when I realized I couldn't hear them from the distance. Shane was my family's last chance at getting Dad to stay. Mom had already tried, I'd tried, and even Carl had shed a tear or two. I just hoped that Shane would be able to talk some sense into –

"Well, I don't man! So, could you just toss me a bone here?" Shane was yelling at Dad as he followed the man towards the center of camp, pulling everyone's attention and letting me know that his attempt had failed. "Just tell me _why_? Why would you risk your life for a douche bag like Merle Dixon?"

The raised voice drew everyone in like moths to a lamplight. Carol and I shared a look before depositing the laundry in our hands on the folding table and falling in with the rest of the group around the RV. I headed for Mom and Carl, tugging on the latter's hair antagonistically as I settled in to stand behind him. He spun and aimed a slap at me which I caught and batted down. Daryl, who had been sitting on an overturned milk crate cleaning his crossbow bolts, jerked his head up at the insult towards his brother.

"Hey, choose your words more carefully." Daryl warned waspishly, pointing a bolt at the officer.

"No, I did." Shane assured glibly. "Douche bag's what I meant. _Merle Dixon—_ the man wouldn't give you a glass of water if you were dying of thirst."

He spat the elder Dixon's name with venom, and I risked a glance towards Daryl just to make sure he wasn't about to explode again.

"What he would do or wouldn't do doesn't interest me. _I_ can't let man die of thirst – me. Thirst and exposure. We left him caught like an animal in a trap, that's no way for anything to die, let alone a human being." Dad argued back.

"So, you and Daryl?" Mom asked sarcastically. "That's your big plan?"

Dad sighed and nodded his head, acknowledging the question before turning around and leveling his blue eyes at a certain someone.

"Come on." Glenn sighed, but the defeat in his voice told me that he had more or less already accepted his fate.

"No." I denied at the same time, shaking my head and glaring towards both men.

Glenn shot me a helpless look as Dad went on. This wasn't happening. My Dad was _not_ about to run off back to Atlanta on a suicide run to save Merle Dixon, of all people, and he was _not_ about to take my best friend with him.

"You know the way, you've been there before, in and out with no problem." Dad pressed Glenn. "You said so yourself."

Glenn looked over at me again, but all I could do was shake my head and bite my tongue. He was a big boy. A strong, independent man. I didn't own him. He was allowed to make his own decisions, just like Dad was. But, God, I wish they'd both start making smart ones for a change.

"Look, I know it's not fair of me to ask," Dad acknowledged, "but I'd feel a whole lot better with you along, and I know they would too."

He looked in our direction. I saw Mom shake her head, a fiery look in her eyes. She did _not_ like being used as leverage for a plan she already didn't agree with. I found myself in the same boat. However, I trusted Glenn with my life and I trusted him with my Dad's life. If it came down to it, having Glenn at his back wouldn't be an awful thing. It seemed Dad was going to go whether we all approved or not. I couldn't decide if the two of them heading off together would abate my worry or just double it.

"That's just great, now you're going to risk three men." Shane growled, staring ahead angrily.

"Four." T-Dog interjected, stepping up.

"My day just gets better and better, don't it?" Daryl huffed.

"You see anybody else here stepping up to save your brother's cracker ass?" T-Dog snapped smoothly.

"Yeah? Why you?" Daryl asked in a neutral tone.

"You wouldn't even begin to understand." T said. "You don't speak my language."

"That's four." Dale counted.

"It's not just four. You're putting everyone single one of us at risk. Just know that Rick." Shane accused. "Come on, man! You saw that Walker, it was _here_. It was _in camp_. They're moving out of the cities. If they come back, we need every able body we've got. We need 'em here, we need 'em to _protect_ camp."

"It seems to me what you really need here are more guns."

Dad said it with such certainty and confidence that I found myself pausing. Guns? What guns? Wh – no, guns didn't matter. Lives mattered.

"Right, the guns." Glenn said in a breathy voice.

"Wait, what guns?" Shane asked, looking a little hesitant now in rejecting Dad's proposal.

I narrowed my eyes at him. _Traitor._

"Six shotguns, two high powered rifles, over a dozen handguns." Dad listed, ticking each firearm off on his fingers. "I cleaned out the cage back at the station before I left. I dropped the bag in Atlanta when I got swarmed, it's just sitting there on the street waiting to be picked up."

"Ammo?"

"Seven hundred rounds, assorted."

And, like that, Shane seemed to be in an internal war with himself. Let his best friend go and get the guns, picking up Merle along the way, or do the safe thing and convince him to stay in camp. Shane shook his head with his hands on his hips but it seemed like he couldn't find anything to say. Mom didn't have the same problem.

"You went through hell to find us. You just got here and now you're going to turn around and leave?" She asked in disbelief.

"Dad, I don't want you to go." Carl piped up.

"Just stay." I agreed, my arms crossed and nails picking at loose thread on my shirt in a nervous manner. "We're finally all back together. Isn't that enough to excuse your conscience?"

Dad cocked his head at me with a pained look, as if the question was unfair. Was it? I didn't think so.

"To hell with the guns. Shane is right. Merle Dixon? He's not worth one of your lives, even with guns thrown in." Mom seethed.

Dad headed toward us then, running a hand over his hair. Mom stood to her feet abruptly, hazel-green eyes like mine starting to redden with unshed tears. Her anger was giving way to what she was really feeling: fear. All of our problems aside, all of the mother-daughter crap that stained our relationship, I had always understood that sect of her life. The fear. The fear that she'd lived with ever since she'd known Dad, that only had to double and then trip when they had Carl and me. I knew being married to any 'line of duty' man wasn't easy. I also knew that that was what put a lot of strain on their relationship. It wasn't the main reason, but it was a pretty big one. Every day she'd ask herself the question, "What if?" What if this time he didn't make it home. Dad had always promised her he would. And, he's always kept his promise…until he hadn't.

"Tell me. Make me understand." Mom pleaded through a tight jaw, eyes glassy.

"I owe a debt to a man I met, and his little boy-,"

I thought Mom was about slap him upside the head, but she gestured frantically to Carl and I instead. Dad took her wrist, pulling her attention back to him and continuing on.

"Lori, if they hadn't taken me in, I'd have died. It's because of them that I made it back to you at all. They said they'd follow me to Atlanta. They'll walk into the same trap I did if I don't warn them."

Mom chewed on this information for a few seconds, closing her eyes and inhaling a steadying breath.

She swallowed. "What's stopping you?"

"The walkie-talkie, the one in the bag I dropped. He's got the other one and our plan was to reconnect when they got closer."

"These are our walkies?" Shane asked from where he was sitting up against the brush-guard of his Jeep.

"Yeah." Rick said grimly.

"So, use the C.B." I suggested, not seeing the problem. "What's wrong with that?"

"The C.B.'s fine." Shane explained. "It's the walkies that suck to crap. Date back to the 70's and don't match any other bandwidth, not even the scanners in our cars."

Dad and Mom locked eyes in a standstill, both pleading with the other to understand.

"I need that bag." He said quietly.

Mom looked down, obviously upset. But, she didn't tell him no. She didn't fight him. She'd accepted it. I bit my cheek, shaking my head. Dad set his sights on me as his next obstacle to overcome, squeezing my arm as he skirted around Mom to stand in front of Carl and me.

"I know you don't like this." He said, quiet like he had been when he was talking with Mom. "But these people saved me and put their trust in me to look out for them. I can't betray that. Okay?"

No, it wasn't okay. I shook my head again, but what could I do? Forbid him? He was my father. Instead, I leaned over Carl's head and wrapped my arms around him tightly, resting my chin on his shoulder for a moment. The hug was short before I was pulling back and turning away, walking towards my tent with a farewell pat on Carl's back. I heard Dad sigh before whispering to Carl, and I heard footsteps tailing behind me. I had a pretty good idea of who it was, but I didn't turn to confirm or deny it. I ducked my head and knocked the tent flap out of my way as I entered our gaudy orange abode, leaving it unzipped so Glenn could follow me in.

"Don't be mad." He pleaded.

"I'm not mad." I snapped, whirling around and facing him. "I'm pissed."

"What am I supposed to do?" Glenn asked, arms out to his sides. "Tell him no? Let him go with Daryl and T-Dog? Daryl, who's brother he handcuffed to a roof? Would that make this better?"

"What would make it better is if you all were just staying put." I snapped hotly. "Or, if I was coming along, too-,"

"No." Glenn cut off sharply.

I blinked. "What?"

"You're not coming with us." He shook his head.

While it hadn't actually been my intention to sincerely go with them, hearing him deny me so swiftly and sternly had taken me aback. "You can't just-,"

"I can and I did." Glenn said with finality.

I stared at him in open mouthed shock. Mine and Glenn's relationship was an easy one, mostly because we were both so similar. We seemed to always be on the same wavelength and same minded. He'd never directly ordered me or forbidden me from doing something before and I wasn't sure how to react now that he had. He must have seen the expression on my face because he softened up quickly and explained.

"I didn't want you to come yesterday with all those extra people. And I was right. I trusted my gut. And I'm going to trust it again."

"You can't use that as an excuse! What happened yesterday was a freak acc-,"

Glenn grabbed my face in his hands and pushed, smooshing my cheeks together and making it almost impossible to talk. I itched to smack his hands away but refrained.

"Shush." He said in a light voice, a smile on his face before it fell and he was serious once again. "You realize you're family to me now, right?"

That shut me up rather quickly as a shot of sobriety rushed through me. I nodded slowly, his hands moving with my face. He was like family to me, too. We'd been through so much together in the short time we'd known each other. He'd saved my life a few times, I'd saved his. We trusted one another to watch our backs.

"If something happened to you, I would never forgive myself." He went on.

My shoulders dropped as I looked at the ground, glaring at the dirt we'd tracked in from not knocking our shoes off outside. Glenn released me, and I moaned. Pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes hard for a moment, I rocked my head back and glared at the roof of the tent like it had all the answers and was refusing to give me one.

"Why do you do this to me?" I whined. "You're going to give me grey hairs."

Glenn chuckled and pulled me into a hug, rocking me side to side. "Look, I'll watch your dad's back, and he'll watch my back, and everything will be fine."

"Everyone keeps saying that." I muttered. "So how come it doesn't feel like it's gonna be?"

My psychiatrist always said that the best way to quiet a loud mind was busying your hands. Back before everything went to hell, that meant I was sometimes doing bad things like shoplifting or pulling pranks with my friends, but more often than not I would find myself at one of the many At-Risk Youth Program ranches that populated King County. My favorite had been the Blue Ridge Ranch, a place I practically lived at during my summer months and was even employed part-time before everything started to unravel. Unfortunately, there were no animals to tend to in the gorge. But, there was laundry to be done and that was close enough for me.

All of the women who had laundry duty piled out of Carol's Cherokee, slamming doors behind us and heading for the cargo space to grab the baskets upon baskets of sweaty, dirty clothes. Ed, the chaperone for today, remained seated in the driver's seat as the rest of us moved, sucking on a cigarette and staring moodily out across the lake. I rolled my eyes and Amy, who had seen the gesture and the cause of it, merely shot me a sly grin before rolling her eyes as well. We waited patiently for our turn to delve into the back of the old car and claim a basket, knowing that as the youngest ones there, we would likely get stuck with the undesirables – sheets and towels. They took the longest to clean.

Sure enough, by the time Amy and I got there, only two baskets remained. We sighed simultaneously, dragging them towards us.

"Disappointed but not surprised." She grumbled, tucking her basket against her hip and heading towards the water where the rest of the women had set up.

Amy was a friend, I felt confident in saying. She was six years older than me, but we got along well enough. Ribbing and teasing aside, we enjoyed one another's company and were grateful for such on days like today. With the sun shining brilliantly overhead and baking down on us, the company you kept was important for morale. So, when we reached the aquamarine water, we slipped out of our shoes and rolled up our jeans, and we made sure we chose seats close to one another.

Setting my basket next to me on the sandy bank, I sunk onto one of two overturned milk crates and slipped my feet into the chilled water. My eyes slid closed in relief and I tilted my head back, a low groan leaving my throat.

"Keep it PG." Amy chastised, smirking.

"Get your mind out of the gutter." I returned, grabbing my first towel and an unattended washboard.

I got to work dutifully, scrubbing towel after towel harshly to rid of various stains and marks. Some were innocent dirt or grass stains, but others were the deep reddish-brown crusts of dried blood. Blood was a bitch to clean out of _anything_. We worked mostly in silence for a little while, someone occasionally making comment about the heat or how tired they were. My head jerked up at the sound of Shane's raised voice and splashing, glancing across a narrow inlet of the lake and seeing him and Carl goofing around in a shallow part. I couldn't keep the smile off my face as I watched Shane flounder in the water as a laughing Carl sat on the bank, a net swishing frantically through the now-murky shallows. It was always nice to see your kid-brother not looking terrified, hungry, or depressed. Jacqui found it a little less amusing than I did.

"I'm beginning to question the division of labor here." She muttered, depositing a portion of the clothes she'd cleaned into a new basket.

Andrea did the same, letting out a breath of exertion and wiping at her forehead with a damp hand. I regarded my half-done basket and frowned, tossing another clean towel into a spare basket sitting a short way behind Amy and me. We would hang them to dry when we got back to camp.

"Can someone explain to me how the women wound up doing all the Hattie McDaniel work?" Jacqui went on.

"The world ended, didn't you get the memo?" Amy asked sarcastically.

Carol risked a glance over her shoulder, and I had no doubt she was seeing Ed sitting on the tailgate of the Cherokee, watching us as he smoked a cigarette. Even from this distance I could smell the harsh scent of the acrid smoke tinted with something cool, meaning he was probably smoking menthols. I, personally, didn't smoke. I never had the desire to, but I didn't condemn those who did. Many of my friends would light up after school, and I would simply pass. Everyone had a poison, but Ed had a whole fucking six-pack of poisons.

"It's just the way it is." Carol said, answering Jacqui's earlier question.

We continued our work in silence for a few moments, only the sound of Shane and Carl's muted conversation and the sound of brushes scrubbing against cloth breaking the calmingly lull of waves against the bank. I'd glance up every so often and catch sight of Shane and Carl sitting on the opposite bank, waving at me before chuckling to themselves. I'd shake my head and go back to work, only slightly bitter about how tired my arms were while they sat there goofing off.

"Switch with me?" Amy asked, kicking my leg under the water to gain my attention.

The sheets and the towels both had their pros and cons. Towels were harder to clean, but they were smaller. Sheets could usually be scrubbed free of their stains rather quickly, but it took an eternity to traverse the whole spread.

"No." I shook my head, warily transporting my basket of dirty towels onto the other side of me beside Carol, well out of Amy's reach.

She rolled her eyes at me and returned to pulling and tugging on the sheet she was currently trying to tackle. Carol let out a long sigh, drawing our attention as she stood up for a brief moment to readjust the stool she had been sitting on for the past hour.

"I do miss my Maytag." The older woman grumbled, arms undoubtedly aching from the constant motion of forcefully scrubbing against a washboard.

I hummed in acknowledgement, missing the ease of throwing things in a washing machine and pushing a button. Hand-washing wasn't nearly as efficient, and it was killer on your body. My fingers were threatening to cramp, my arms burned, my ass was numb, and my bent spine was aching something fierce.

"I miss my Bens. My Sat Nav." Andrea said in an equally longing tone.

"I miss my coffeemaker, with that dual drip filter and built in grinder, honey." Jacqui moaned, eyes closed as she fantasized about it.

I nodded at the thought of that as well, a nice and hot steaming cup of joe that _wasn't_ black sludge warmed over a campfire.

"My computer." Amy contributed. "Texting."

"How about you, Katie?" She asked me, nudging my knee as I had paused in scrubbing.

"Chocolate." I responded without hesitation.

Everyone moaned and hummed in agreement, trying to recall the last time any of us had been blessed with the gloriously decadent treat. Andrea halted scrubbing her brush against the shirt in her hands as a thought came to her.

"I miss my vibrator." She admitted, throwing her hands in the air.

"Ohhh." Jacqui hummed suggestively.

"Oh my God!" Amy snickered out, sounding faintly mortified.

I felt a blush touch my cheeks, hopefully not noticeable under my tan, but to play on the safe side I lowered my head a bit. Dirty old women, the whole lot of them. Chuckles died into silence.

"Me too." Carol said quietly after tossing a small look over her shoulder at her husband.

I couldn't help the embarrassed laughter that burst from me, and neither could anyone else. I rubbed my cool and wet hands against my face to abate the heat that graced it, scooping up some of the water and releasing it to slide down the back of my neck.

"Y'all are so weird." I complained through a smile, ignoring the jeers and playful shoves that were thrown my way as a result.

"What's so funny?"

Just like that, our faces became guarded and the teasing mood died. Mine and Amy's hands clashed as we both reached quickly for the brushes we'd dropped in the shallow water between us, looking for an excuse not to talk to Ed as he approached. The sound of crunching sand behind us letting us know he was heading straight in our direction. I felt my nose and lips twitch in something reminiscent of a sneer and resumed work. Something instinctive inside me had me scooting closer to Carol, almost protectively. Andrea, who was on the other side of Carol, seemed to do the same as she turned to look over her shoulder at the man.

"Just swapping war stories, Ed." Andrea told him in an almost amicable voice.

I wrung out the towel in my hands as best as I could before tossing it in the clean basket behind me and reaching for another. As I leaned to reach the dirty basket, I couldn't help but glance in the direction where I felt a pair of eyes burrowing into me. Sure enough, Ed's beady gaze met mine before I quickly looked away. I was torn between being cautious and being angry. I was a sixteen-year-old girl, one-hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet. My temper could only get me so far in an altercation before biology and physics reared its ugly head.

"Problem, Ed?" Andrea asked in annoyance, feeling the same way I did but deciding to voice it whereas I'd decided to keep my mouth shut.

"Nothin' that concerns you." Ed said in a superior tone. To Carol, "And you ought to focus more on your work. This ain't no comedy club."

The southern accent that I had grown up around my entire life sounded so slimy and poisonous coming from his mouth. I'd met a few men like Ed before, living in King County. They were meaner than junkyard dogs, and twice as unpredictable. I inhaled sharply in surprise as my hand cramped from the force I was clenching the brush, dropping it quickly into the bucket and pulling my twinging hand against my chest. A pained hiss left my lips and I shook it fiercely, trying to dispel the ache. My butt had bypassed numb and was now starting to hurt from the holes in the crate. Ed was really putting my nerves on the edge from just his mere presence. In a blink of an eye, my afternoon had gone from shit to shittier shit. The only thing left was the shittiest of shittier shit, but I was praying that it wouldn't come to th –

"Ed, tell you what." Andrea stood up abruptly and took a few steps that separated her from Carol's husband. "You don't like how your laundry is done, you are more than welcome to pitch in and do it yourself. Here."

Andrea tossed the shirt at him, which he promptly caught and threw back _hard_. Andrea gasped as a mouthful it her in the face, taking a step back with the force of it. Amy and I jumped up first, moving in front of Carol to stand beside Andrea. Jacqui was more hesitant but just as determined as she walked up behind the grey-haired woman and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. Shittiest of shittier shit was coming, and it was coming fast. No time to grab an umbrella or run for cover.

"Ain't my job, missy." Ed growled.

"Andrea, don't." Amy cautioned her sister worriedly.

"What is your job, Ed?" The eldest blonde went on, disregarding the seriousness of the situation as her pride was pinched. "Sitting on your ass smoking cigarettes?"

"Well, it sure as hell ain't listening to some uppity smart-mouthed bitch." Ed sneered, flicking his half-spent cigarette towards us.

Andrea looked at him with her best, 'Hell Naw' look. My eyes darted between both party members, body humming as I waited for a climax of tension. This wasn't going to end without a physical confrontation, I knew that much, and I really wasn't ready for it. My nails bit into my palms from how hard I was clenching my hands, body tight as a drum. Ed seemed to realize that he needed to break away from what was happening here before he did something drastic and glared at Carol over my head.

"Come on, let's go." Ed snapped at her.

"I don't think she needs to go anywhere with you, Ed." Andrea denied, one hand going behind her to ward Carol from proceeding forward.

"And I say it's none of your business. Come on now." He said the last part to his wife.

Andrea once again reached out to try and stop the poor woman from breaking past our line of defense, but Carol, ever the worrying mother, tried to back her away from the situation. "Andrea, please. It doesn't matter."

"Hey. Don't think I won't knock you on your ass, just 'cause you're some college educated cooze, alright?" Ed warned Andrea who looked like she was a second away from snapping. "Now, you come on now, or you're going to regret it later." He threatened Carol.

The obviousness of it made my blood boil. He was so god damn confident that he'd just verbally threatened her in front of _all of us_. He wasn't trying to hide anything at all. What a god-damn scumbag.

"So she can show up with fresh bruises later, Ed?" Jacqui asked in a heartbroken voice. "Yeah, we've seen them."

"You know what? This ain't none of y'all's business. You don't want to keep prodding the bull here, okay? Now I am done talking. _Come on_." Ed reached past Andrea and me and grabbed Carol by the arm, jerking her forward.

"No, no, Carol. You don't have to." Andrea tried to pry Ed off to no avail.

As Jacqui and Amy rushed to do the same, I felt it. This was it. It was about to happen. And, my God, did it happen.

"You don't tell me what! I'll tell _you_ what!" Ed roared, backhanding Carol roughly across the face.

There was a large clamor as Amy and Jacqui pulled Carol from his grasp while Andrea and I forced ourselves between the two opposing parties, warding Ed back with outstretched arms and screams. He wasn't deterred in the slightest, brushing me and Andrea off like we were flies. Somewhere in the struggle, a big meaty elbow swung down and nailed me in the eye, the sheer power behind it jerking my head to the side. I was able to ignore the pain for a blissful moment as I let my anger fuel me instead. Ed was huge and towering and the highest I could reach was his solar plexus, which wasn't a problem. I drew back my fist and sent it driving forward with all of my strength. I knew I didn't have enough force to actually hurt him, but I did cause him to gasp out in pain and retract from us as he tried to regain the ability to breathe. It was then we were able to pull Carol free – and then Shane was there, hauling Ed away from all of us by the collar of his shirt, dragging the struggling man through the sand like he was a sack of dog shit.

With Ed currently in the hands of Shane, Carol safely behind us wall of women, I was finally able to register the pain in my skull. The hurt hit me like a second punch, stealing my breath for a moment.

"Son of a bitch!" I exclaimed as the rush of adrenaline faded and my body let me know just where and how bad I'd been hurt.

I bent over at the waist, not too interested in what was happening now that I could feel the bone-deep throbbing around my right eye. Both hands went to covering my orbital socket, feeling the slick tears streaming out of it. Wow, it was bad. Like, really bad. A hand touched my back as I hunched over, and I heard Amy's voice asking me repeatedly if I was okay. Her voice was drowned out as pleads for Shane to stop rose into the air. Amy's hand went to my wrist, trying to pull my hand away, but I resisted. Then, her hand was gone and a larger one replaced it.

"Kit?" Shane's voice was hard, shaky with anger. "Kit, lemme see. C'mon."

"No." I objected, trying to shoulder myself away from him. "I'm fine."

"Katherine, come on." Shane said firmly, not letting go.

Reluctantly, I dropped my hands and grimaced when I heard a few muffled gasps from the women who were behind Shane, giving him a cautiously wide berth but also sticking around to see the damage that had been dealt. The bright light made me wince, which made me wince again in pain. Shane's own eyes widened in surprise before they darkened murderously.

"I swear to God, I'm gonna kill him." He snarled, looking like he was about to go and do just that.

"No," I denied swiftly, grabbing onto his shirt just in case. "No, maybe you could take me back to camp instead?"

He gritted his teeth, looking unconvinced before seeming to see the sense of my request and nodding.

"Okay." He agreed.

"Take the car." Andrea suggested, looking nervous as she glanced between Shane and the direction Carol's sobs were coming from. "Quicker than walking."

"And here." Amy passed me a water-soaked shirt and I accepted it gratefully, hesitantly pressing it against my eye and struggling not to yelp. "It's not a bag of ice, but it's better than nothing."

"Thanks." I gritted out, letting Shane's hand on my shoulder turn me around and escort me back to the Cherokee.

I felt nauseous as the pain really started to settle in, a headache throbbing at the back of my skull and pulsating dully through the interior of my head. I turned my head to find Carol, her apologies pulling on my curiosity. I gasped when I saw her kneeling next to a sputtering Ed who was flat on his back, blood bubbling on his face with every labored breath he gave.

"Holy shit, Shane." I blurted out before he led me around the back of the vehicle and yanked open the passenger door.

Shane didn't respond, helping me maneuver into the seat before pulling the lever on the side of it so that it'd lay back some. My shock at Shane's brutality faded as I reclined my head back on the stiff padding of the headrest, closing my eyes. The door shut and a handful of seconds later the driver door opened before slamming as well. I cracked open my good eye and rolled my head to glance at Shane as he sat in the driver's seat, stiff as a board and unmoving.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

He snorted out a sarcastic laugh. "Am _I_ okay? Geez, Kit."

I sighed. "You know what I mean."

"I'm fine." He said brusquely, the muscle in his jaw ticking. "Let's get you back to camp. Your Mama's gonna have an aneurism when she sees you."

With a quick turn of his wrist, he started the engine and put the car in drive. The car hummed beneath me as we started the slow drive back to the camp. With a groan, I readjusted the shirt over my eye so it was cold again. Honestly, I almost would have rather laid out in the sand than head back up. I knew, inevitably, people were going to be spouting out questions and I was frankly in too much pain to deal with them.

"Ugh, I'm gonna look like I belong in a bell tower in Paris." I groaned, rolling my head beck to stare at the ceiling.

"Don't start going by Quasimodo just yet." Shane assured, the barest hint of a smile in his voice. "I'm sure you'll look more badass than disfigured."

"Black eyes only look cool on dudes, Shane." I informed pointedly.

The drive was only two or three minutes and it wasn't long before Shane was stopping the car. I opened my door on my own even though he was quick to round the hood and help me out. As expected, the state of my arrival caused an immediate chain of reactions.

"Oh my God!"

"Katie?"

"Kit?"

"Amy, what happened?"

"Are you alright?"

Jesus, you show up with a wet towel over your eye and being led through camp by the man in charge, and they acted like my arm had blown off. It was just a bruise, folks. A lotta bit of soft tissue swelling and busted capillaries, not exactly ER worthy.

"Oh my God." Mom's voice came from my right side, stopping Shane and I just short as he led me towards the RV. "What the hell happened?"

She was suddenly in front of me, her cold hands gently taking my face and angling my head up, so she could see it better. She urged me to remove the shirt I was using as an icepack. I did as she wanted, deciding it would be less painful to simply remove the shirt than have her wrestle it from me. Her eyes widened before shooting up to look at Shane with an almost accusatory look.

"There was an incident down at the quarry." Shane informed.

"Ed." I clarified.

"Ed did this?" Mom repeated, anger making her voice tremble. "You're telling me Ed Pelletier hit _my_ _daughter_?"

The look on her face made me think she was about to march down there and beat him half to death herself.

"Shane took care of it." I assured shortly, the act of simply standing in the heat making the pain in my head worse. "Mom, I wanna go lie down."

The woman's jaw clenched so tight I could swear I heard a filling crack, but she nodded her head and slipped her arm around my shoulder, pulling me into her and away from Shane. Her hand rubbed at my arm as she turned us around and led us towards the Winnebago.

"Alright, sweetheart." She said softly. "Let's get you to the RV. You can rest on a real bed for a little bit."

A real bed sounded like heaven at the moment, although I honestly would have taken my sleeping bag on the ground as well.

"I'll…I'll take the car back down." I heard Shane say behind me. "Bring your things back up."

I looked over my shoulder. "Thank you, Shane."

"No problem, darlin'." He assured, throwing me a strained smile.


	5. Chapter 5: They Come

I ended up sleeping through a whole lot. After taking a few painkillers from the limited supply we had, Dale had been kind enough to clear of the junk from one of the beds in the back of the RV and lay down a fresh sheet for me. The RV beds weren't anything fancy, but I'd passed out nearly as soon as my head had hit the pillow. When I woke up, the light coming through the window was orangey and not the midday yellow I'd seen before. I'd had to have been asleep for a few hours at least. I noticed, as I slowly came to consciousness, that there wasn't too much pain around my eye anymore, just a lot of pressure that was in turn causing a rather impressive headache. I groaned, rubbing carefully at my temple and levering myself up with the other arm.

My right eye, the one that had been at the business end of Ed's elbow, was a little sensitive to the light coming through the window. Still, I could see through the slits of the cheap blinds that quite a number of the camp inhabitants were congregating outside the RV where Andrea and Amy were standing with chains loaded with fish. I blinked a few times, sure that I was just seeing things, because they had to have had fifteen or twenty fish – each. I swung my legs to the floor of the Winnebago, standing up and swaying just a little. I grabbed the water bottle sitting on the ground beside the bench-style bed and the two aspirins sitting on a paper plate, both which I hadn't noticed until regaining my feet. Swallowing the medicine, I shuffled down the hallway and paused in the open doorway of the RV.

Shane was sat on the metal steps with his shotgun by his side, leaning up against the vehicle. Completely blocking my way down and out. It seemed like such a large inconvenience, my temper somewhat short after waking up from naps. I heaved an irritated sigh before I cleared my throat, clogged with phlegm as it was from sleep. His head shot around to look at me before he was standing up and giving me a way to proceed downward. I muttered a thanks, grabbing onto the railing on the side of the RV for added balance. Everything was a little sway-ish.

"Hey." He greeted, making a sympathetic face. "How's the eye?"

"Fine." I smiled with pursed lips, the gesture empty and offset by my tired expression.

"Lemme see?"

I turned my head in his direction, baring the afflicted eye in all its glory. Shane hissed through his teeth. I half-expected him to try and touch it, but he kept his hands to himself.

"Not too bad." He diagnosed. "Looks like your cheekbone took the brunt of the hit. Good thing. Don't recall any of us here being ophthalmologists."

"So, does it look badass?"

Shane looked unimpressed.

I narrowed my good eye. "Quasimodo?"

He snorted at that, helping me down the rest of the way down the short steps before retaking his seat. I threw my fingers up in a farewell wave, walking the short distance towards the campfire where everyone was admiring the sisters' impressive catch.

"'Scuse me." I muttered, squeezing past Morales and his wife to enter the inner throng of the group.

"Look who it is." Amy greeted. "If I knew all it would take was a little black eye to skip out on laundry duty…"

"Hardy-har." I said sarcastically, spotting an unoccupied chair to the left of Mom who was scoring her eyes worriedly across my face.

"How are you feeling?" She asked from where she was sitting on some car seats we'd pulled from the abandoned cars on the highway, stitching a shirt of hers that had split on the seam.

"Fine." I assured, making my way over and collapsing into the camping chair. "A little sore, but it's mostly just pressure. My head won't stop aching, though."

"Probably shouldn't have let you sleep. You could have had a concussion." Mom chided herself, reaching forward as if to stroke the skin.

I pulled back out of reach, wincing prematurely and catching her wrist in my hand to gently return it towards her body.

"I wasn't hit that hard." I promised, struggling to paste a sincere half-smile on my face to placate her.

She didn't look convinced, but her youngest's sudden appearance stopped any more concerned questioning.

"Look at all the fish, Kit!" Carl exclaimed, popping up by my side from seemingly nowhere.

The sound of his loud voice right beside my ear caused a fresh bolt of pain to shoot through my head. I winced but bit back my immediate instinct to snap at him waspishly. It wasn't his fault I was in the predicament I was in, after all. I couldn't keep the groan in though, and he seemed a little deflated as I turned to respond.

"I see that." I nodded, shooting Amy and Andrea a small thumbs up. "Good work, ladies."

Amy, who wandered closer to me as well, threw an arm around my shoulders and shook me gently. "You can make it up to me by doing double-duty on the laundry next week."

"I guess that does seem fair." I admitted ruefully, assuming she'd had to finish my load after I'd been whisked away by Shane.

"Hey, Dale!" Andrea called, announcing the older man's presence as he walked up the road that led to the quarry. "When's the last time you oiled those line reels? They are a _disgrace_."

"I, uh…" Dale didn't hardly react to Andrea's teasing jab. "I don't want to alarm anyone, but we may have a problem."

Jim ignored us even as we approached rather noisily. When Dale recounted the brief conversation he had had with the tall and reclusive man, the high from Amy and Andrea's success with fishing had dampened just a little bit. Okay, fine, it was like dumping the Gulf of Mexico onto a match. Shane led the procession of us down the road from the quarry and up an unmarked path where Dale said he'd seen Jim madly digging holes. Sure enough, there he was. Sweat dripped from every pore on his body, soaking his shirt and falling from his hair. Shane came to a stop and the rest of us did as well, a few feet behind him. Jim didn't acknowledge us, even when we spent a good fifteen seconds just staring at him in silence. He continued to pound his shovel into the dirt, churning it up so it would scoop easier.

"Hey, Jim." Shane tried to catch his attention to no avail. "Jim, why don't you give me a second here, please."

The gangly man drove the head of his flathead into the ground, swinging his head to look at us with blind irritation, as if we were interrupting something important with our being there. Dark shadows hung under his eyes, his face surprisingly gaunt. He had a haunted look about him, like he'd seen something horrific. It made me want to jerk my head back and forth to scour the area for a threat that I was fairly sure wasn't there. I threw my arm around Carl's shoulder as he stood between me and Mom, pretending like I was just using him as an armrest but actually trying to reassure myself that he was perfectly safe.

"What do you want?" Jim sighed in a breathless voice, whether it was from exasperation or exertion I wasn't exactly sure.

"We're all just a little concerned, that's all." Shane soothed.

"Dale says you've been out here for hours." Morales prompted, the only one of his family who had made the trip to the grassy field elevated above the camp.

"So?" Jim asked petulantly.

"So why are you digging? What, you heading to China, Jim?" Shane asked the last question playfully, trying to alleviate some of the tension.

"What's it matter? I'm not hurting anyone." Jim persisted, going as far as to even give a thin smile.

"Except maybe yourself." Dale pointed out. "It's a hundred degrees today, you can't keep this up."

"Sure I can, watch me!" Jim snapped, stabbing the ground viciously.

"Jim, they're not gonna say it, so I will. You're scaring people. You're scaring my kids, and Carol's daughter." Mom stepped forward, stopping just behind Dale's shoulder with her arms crossed.

Now, I wasn't scared. Confused, yes. Worried for Jim's wellbeing, yes. But I knew that, while they hadn't outwardly commented on it, the children in camp who had been around to hear Dale's recount were disturbed by Jim's actions. Jim looked at her, his head rolling with the motion in an irritated way.

"They got nothing to be scared of." Jim panted out, shaking his head in disbelief. "I mean what the hell, people? I'm out here by myself. Why don't y'all just go and leave me the hell alone?"

Once again, he started to attack the ground, trying to end the conversation. I chewed on my lip, knowing that Jim's rising annoyance with us and his refusal to relax was like someone adding gasoline to a fire. That fire just so happened to be named Shane Walsh.

"We think that you need to take a break, okay?" Shane said, tone balancing between gentle and forceful as he stepped ever closer. "So why don't you go get yourself some shade, some food? Tell you what, maybe in a little bit I'll come out here. I'll help you myself."

Jim ignored the proposition and tossed a shovel full of dirt to the side, his breathing labored. I frowned in worry. Jim was definitely starting to suffer from heatstroke and probably dehydration. It was a miracle he hadn't passed out; a miracle or blind desperation to finish digging those holes. I knew he wasn't in his right mind and Shane was going to have to use all his police negotiation skills to talk Jim down.

"Jim, just tell me what it's about." Shane pressed. "Why don't you just go ahead and give me that shovel?"

"Or what?" Jim taunted immediately, stopping his digging abruptly with a hand tightly wrapped around the handle of the shovel.

"There is no 'or what.'" Shane shook his head. "I'm asking you. I'm coming to you and I'm _asking_ you, _please_. I don't want to have to take it from you."

I flinched at that last part, knowing it was completely unnecessary in the negotiation. Damn it, Shane. Those weren't compromising words. But of course, males couldn't pass up an opportunity to exert their strength and dominance on another. Neither my father nor Shane were exceptions, it seemed. Stupid testosterone.

"And if I don't? Then what?" Jim continued to press, poking the bear. "Then you're gonna beat my face in like Ed Pelletier."

A shocked silence enveloped the group that had ventured up the hill. My eye throbbed at the reminder and Carol let out a soft noise, clutching Sophia closer to her. My free hand went to her shoulder comfortingly, flashing Sophia a strained smile of reassurance.

"You've all seen his face, what's left of it!" In a quieter voice meant just for Shane, Jim added. "See, now that's what happens when someone crosses you."

"That was different, Jim." Shane bit out in a voice barely concealing righteous anger.

"You weren't there. Ed was out of control. He was hurting people, hurting his wife." Amy defended.

"That is their marriage, not his!" Jim exploded. "He is not judge and jury. Who voted you King Boss, huh?"

Carol pulled Sophia against her protectively, one hand pressing against Sophia's ear to press the side of her head against her chest. Dale held his hands out in a calming motion, but neither men took real notice of the gesture. The situation had already flown the cuckoo's nest, so to speak. Shane seemed to be at the edge of his patience, and suddenly there wasn't a negotiation anymore so much as a blatant order.

"Jim, I'm not here to argue with you, alright? Just give me the shovel, okay?" Shane stepped forward, reaching for it.

"No." Jim warned, retreating a staggering step.

"Just give me the—Jim!"

Jim pushed Shane firmly back, brandishing the tool in his hands like a weapon. He took a swing at Shane's head with it, which he thankfully dodged, before the ex-deputy roughly tackled the sun crazed man, taking him bodily to the ground with a thud. A few shouts of surprise and fear erupted, a little late as the shovel was now lying on the ground uselessly.

"Shane!" Carl yelped.

"He's alright." I assured, clenching my hand in Carl's shirt so he couldn't do something stupid.

Truth be told, I was as stiff as a board myself. Shane and Jim struggled for a few moments, limbs reaching and grabbing. It felt like an eternity before Shane managed to flip the other man around on his stomach, pulling his arms behind his back to restrain him.

"You got no right!" The deranged man screamed, thrashing in the freshly overturned dirt.

"Jim, just stop it! Hey, hey, hey. Jim. Jim, nobody's gonna hurt you." Shane's voice eased into soothing as he grabbed his cuffs from his back pocket, firmly closing them around said man's wrists. "You hear me? Nobody's gonna hurt you."

"That's a lie. That's the biggest lie there is." Jim said bitterly, finally coming down off his panic high and going suddenly limp with his face half-buried in the dirt. "I told that to my wife and my two boys, I told them over and over, a hundred times. It didn't matter. They came out of nowhere, dozens of 'em. Just pulled them right outta my hands."

My hands flew to my mouth as I realized where Jim was going with his story. The rest of the group watched on somberly, knowing all too well what it felt like to lose a loved one suddenly. It was the one thing that we all had in common, the one thing that could tie a group of strangers together: the knowledge of loss. We'd all lost someone.

"You know, the only reason I got away was because the dead were too busy eating my family." Jim finished, grinding his face into the cool dirt.

"No, you carry the five." I said, shaking my head as Carl messily scribbled a number on his paper. "You don't leave it there."

"But it's a decimal." He objected, fixing me with a blank blue-eyed stare.

"You still have to carry. You can't leave it in the hundredths place." I explained, scrubbing his eraser across the text book page and correcting his answer. "See?"

My little brother staring unseeingly at the textbook told me that he, in fact, did _not_ see.

"This is so confusing." He whined, dropping his pencil on the table and his head in his hands.

"It's all confusing." I informed. "But at least you only have to deal with numbers. Wait until you get into higher level math. That's when letters come in and the real fun begins."

"Letters in math?" Sophia asked from her side of the table, sounding horrified.

I nodded solemnly. She seemed to have trouble digesting that, looking towards Carol with wide eyes, as if I was lying. Carol could only nod in consensus with me. I smiled, turning back to Carl only to find him eyeing Sophia's paper as slyly as possible. I rolled my eyes at the badly concealed attempt to cheat, but otherwise let it slide. I knew how he felt, me having despised the hours I labored over my own homework. For all of my behavior issues and overall awful constitution, school had been the one thing I hadn't dared to fail. It was bad enough being known as the police officer's daughter at my high school, I didn't also need to be known as the _stupid_ police officer's daughter.

I glanced up to see Shane and Dale walking over to a tied-up Jim a few paces away from us. He'd been there for about thirty minutes now, going between resting with his eyes closed and staring blankly out into the forest. He had a wet rag draped over the back of his neck to try and help cool him down, as the consensus seemed to be that the poor former-mechanic had suffered from sunstroke. With how inhumanly hot it was, I couldn't necessarily blame him. Still, the man _had_ tried to take Shane's head off with a shovel. That wasn't something one could just excuse on a little bit of heat sickness. I looked down as Carl shoved his textbook towards me, pointing to the next problem.

"This one, now." He encouraged, just as ready to be done as I was.

"We just did that one." I told him.

"No, you did number 10. This is number 11."

"Carl."

"Kit." He sassed me back.

Children these days. No respect.

I raised an eyebrow at him. "That's how you thank me for my help? I don't feel very appreciated."

"I appreciate you." Sophia piped up from her side of the table.

I pointed my finger at the girl and nodded my head. "I like her. I'm going to go sit with her."

Carl merely turned his nose up and rolled his eyes. Sophia scooted over and made room for me to sit beside her, thrusting her textbook practically in front of me.

"Number 11." She said cheekily.

I blinked down at her for a few seconds, not sure if she was pulling my leg. When all I saw in her big blue eyes was childish innocence, I narrowed my own eyes.

"Why do I put up with you people, again?" I asked dryly.

The two children giggled at my expense, even Carol cracking a smile.

"Jim, do you know why you were digging? Can you say?"

I hadn't been paying attention to the three men talking, but those words caught my curiosity. I gestured for Sophia to go ahead and start on the problem, casting my eyes over towards the tree Jim was tied to. Shane was crouched in front of him, a bucket of water and a still dripping ladle in hand. Jim's whole head was shiny, and I figured Shane had doused him.

"I had a reason." Jim nodded, more to himself than to anyone else. "Don't remember. Something I dreamt. Last night."

I jumped as Jim's dark eyes met mine over the short distance, guiltily looking down before realizing I'd already been caught and that there was no real point of hiding it. I looked back, taking in his haggard appearance.

"Your dad was in it." He said, holding my gaze across the distance. "Both of you were, too. You were worried about him. Can't remember the rest."

Carl, who was sitting across from me, turned to look at Jim, then back at me, and then back at Jim.

"You worried about your dad?"

"They're not back yet." Carl answered.

I gave a strained smile, kicking my brother's leg gently under the table to try and pull his attention back to the math in front of us.

"We're not worried." I said confidently, although I couldn't _not_ be concerned with the fact that they'd been gone all day and it would be nightfall in a couple of hours. "Dad's tough, right? He'll take care of himself."

I said the last part to Carl who nodded noncommittally.

"Your sister's right." Jim nodded, focusing with incredible intensity on Carl. "Your dad's a police officer, son. He helps people. Probably just came across some folks needing help, is all. Now that man…he is tough as nails. I don't know him well, but I could see it in him…am I right?"

He looked up at Shane who had regained his feet and was listening with his hands on his hips. Shane nodded his head in a swinging manner, sighing,

"Oh, yeah."

Jim looked confident with Shane's confirmation and now glanced his still somewhat bleary eyes between Carl and I, "There ain't nothing that will stop him from getting back her to you two and your mom. I promise you that."

I gave a small smile, nodding my head and looking back down at the problem Sophia had almost finished. It wasn't that I didn't believe him, but…

"Alright, who wants to help me clean some fish?" Shane extended the offer, picking up the bucket of water and walking towards our little study session.

"Alright!" Carl crowed, dropping his pencil and standing up.

"What are you doing?" I shot at Shane. "I'm trying to impart knowledge here."

"C'mon, Kit." He grinned crookedly. "They need a break."

"They've only been working for fifteen minutes."

"Aw, now. Who here needs a break, raise your hand?" Shane raised his own in the air, and Sophia and Carl were quick to copy the movement. "Then let's get going. Kit'll be thanking us later tonight when she's eating clean, gutted fish by the bucket-load."

I closed my eyes, shaking my head at the happy crowing of the kids and resisting the urge to rest it on the table. I'd already slept so much of the day away after the laundry incident. The two kids scrambled away from me and the lesson like we'd turned into poison, and like that I was left alone with textbooks and a parting wink from Shane…and Jim. I risked a glance his way, but his dark eyes were watching the kids and Shane retreat. Looking back at the books, I resignedly closed them and started shoving the heavy texts and papers into a mesh backpack for safekeeping. It was as I was rising to my feet, throwing the thin rope straps over my shoulder, that I heard my name.

"Kit."

I glanced over my shoulder at Jim, but he was staring straight ahead of him. I would have thought it was my imagination, but he repeated my name once again.

"Kit."

I blinked, glancing down at the water bucket beside him and assuming that he was just thirsty. Readjusting my backpack, I headed slowly towards him and hoped I didn't look as awkward as I felt. Kneeling down beside him and the water bucket, I opened my mouth to speak when he suddenly jerked his head around to look at me. I was taken aback by the fierceness in his expression; the firm way his mouth was set and the hardness in his eyes. This looked nothing like the quiet, mellow man I knew.

"You keep your family close." Jim gritted out to me, dipping his head to ensure he held my eyes. "Don't let them out of your sight. You hear me?"

I couldn't do more than nod after a moment of silence. He held my gaze a little bit longer before nodding in relief at whatever he saw, turning to stare blankly in front of him again. I hovered there a few seconds longer before pushing to my feet and turning around. Without another word, I walked off. I didn't even think about giving him water.

The air was surprisingly cheery as we gathered around the campfire, the smell of cooking fish thick and appetizing. I'd never been much of a fish eater Before, but I was on my second plate already tonight. I split the chunk of fried fish in half on my plate, studying the flaky white meat. The kids and Shane did a good job cleaning and gutting. Clinking forks and soft chewing were the prominent sounds, along with the crackling of the fire. Everyone was too busy stuffing their faces to worry about holding any meaningful conversation. I lifted a piece the meat into my mouth and closed my eyes. I definitely preferred this to cold beans and squirrel.

"Pass the fish please." Carl asked.

I was seated next to Amy who seemed to be a bit fidgety, shifting in her seat continuously and letting out short huffs of breaths. Shooting her a sidelong glance, I shrugged it off and looked down at the empty spot on the log to my right where Glenn usually sat. I glanced over towards where Mom and Carl were pressed together, Dad's presence sorely noticeable even though he'd only been back for a day. I really, really missed them.

"I got to ask you, man." Morales spoke from where he sat with his family. "It's been driving me crazy."

"What?" Dale asked, a smile on his face.

"That watch." He pointed at the accessory.

"What's wrong with my watch?"

And so began a long and arduous conversation about Dale's watch and his constant winding. I lost interest about halfway through and occupied myself with scraping the few fish flakes left on my plate into a tidy pile. Amy stood up suddenly beside me, startling me back into the present and causing me to knock over the tiny pyramid I'd been shaping. I watched as she stood up, laying her plate on the ground and starting to walk back towards the RV.

"Where are you going?" Andrea asked before she got more than a step away.

Amy looked sideways in embarrassed annoyance. "I have to pee." She hissed. "Geez, try to be discreet around here."

I snorted and set my plate down on top of hers, wiping my hands off on the side of my jeans. I heard the RV door squeal open and thud dully shut. Looking around the campfire at the people laughing at Amy's expense, I found a smile curling on my lips. This was rare for us, even having a few moments of genuine joy and amusement. Sure, there were days when we weren't living in constant fear, but to actually be at ease…it was something special. And it really blew that my father and friend weren't with us to enjoy it. The RV door squeaked back open, Amy's exaggerated footfalls clamoring down the stairs.

"We're out of toilet paper?" Amy asked in exasperation.

Before anyone could answer, Amy's scream shattered the peaceful air and sent me stumbling off of my log to spin around. I watched white-faced as a Walker loomed over Amy, its teeth sinking into her arm and sending blood to spew from the corners of its mouth. The fire pit exploded into screams as well as everyone scrambled to find shelter or weapons. I found myself frozen and unable to move, standing there stiffly and watching as Walkers filtered into the camp, lurching towards anyone they locked their milky eyes on.

It all happened so fast, I couldn't hardly process it. One minute we were chowing down on fish fry, and the next everybody was running and screaming. Walkers were literally pouring out of the darkness on the edge of camp, lurching past some and tearing into others with the ferocity of a vicious dog. Mom had grabbed Carl and pushed him to the ground as Shane jumped to his feet and sent a round of buckshot into the head of a Walker that wandered too close. My eyes went back to Amy, on the ground beside the RV and pale as death with crimson blood splashing all over her. A Walker looming behind her swooped down like an eagle on a rabbit, biting a second chunk out of the young woman's neck. My eyes were still locked firmly on Amy as the blonde sank to the ground, crimson splashing all over her as she continued to scream in pain and attract the attention of more of the dead. I was faintly aware of Shane's shotgun losing a shot somewhere near me, and one of the Walker's heads exploded.

I heard someone calling my name, but it came to my ears like I was underwater. It was only when Shane's hand locked onto my forearm like an iron band, bruising and unbreakable, that I managed to break back into the real world. The screams returned to my awareness at an unbearable decibel. Shane yanked me behind him where I was crashed into Mom and Carl whose hands replaced his, herding me after him as we made for the RV. Shane cut through the chaos with efficiency, letting off shotgun rounds whenever a Walker blocked his path. My right hand was clenched tightly in the back of his shirt, my left clenched painfully tight with Mom's. I risked a glance over my shoulder and met her terrified eyes before looking past her at where Carol was half carrying, half dragging Sophia along with us.

It took me much too long to remember that I also had a gun, and that it was the hardness I felt pressing into my stomach. I let go of Shane's shirt and yanked the pistol free, the weight alone helping me ground myself and focus. I thought back on all of those afternoons I'd spent with Dad and Shane at the range, them pushing me when I wanted to just go home, until I could confidently (not comfortably, _confidently_ ) handle a firearm safely. I'd never been all that comfortable around guns, but it seemed to all be paying off, now.

 _Fight or flight_. _Fight or flight._ The primal urge to do either one or the other was overwhelming, and I would have loved to dash off into the dark away from all of the carnage. I'd have loved to just climb a tree and huddle on a branch until the screams stopped. But we were surrounded, and my family was in the mess of it. A rotting face loomed up on our left and I raised the weapon that was clenched in my hand. I pulled the trigger smoothly and took the recoil as well as I could, feeling slightly better as I watched the decaying face explode in the middle of its forehead before the Walker crumpled to the ground. The clip in my gun had once held 15 rounds at some point, but I knew very well that it was currently only holding three more at the moment. Ammo was in high demand and low supply, and I had a few occasions to use it since Shane had forced it into my hand that night on the highway when we'd gotten caught in that massive traffic jam heading into Atlanta.

I emptied the remaining three bullets into three separate Walkers in quick succession before hearing the ominous click of an empty chamber. Thankfully, by that time, we had reached the RV and I was standing with Mom and Carl, hunched up next to the metal siding of the RV and trying not to look down at Amy and Andrea who were lying on the ground a few feet away. Andrea's panicked pleading and Amy's labored, gasping breaths begged my attention, but I kept my eyes on the massacre occurring in front of me. There wasn't anything I could do but stand there and wait for it to either be over, or for the mass of Walkers to break through the defensive line that the surviving camp members had formed in front of the children and women who'd made it to the Winnebago.

Shane was planted in front of Carl, Mom, and me. Dale had joined the line with his rifle, fumbling between loosing of a few shots at a time and then being forced to reload. Thankfully Morales appeared from the shambling dead, pushing his wife and children behind the line of defense and picking up Dale's slack armed with only a baseball bat and the frantic energy of wanting to protect his family. I grabbed Eliza as Miranda carried Louis toward Mom, pushing her in beside Carl and shielding the both of them with my own body. Jim took up a stance near the two sisters on the ground, working double time to fend off the dead attracted by Andrea's cries. I knew I should help, but I couldn't seem to unfreeze. This had all happened so suddenly, and I couldn't hardly…

A hand grabbed my ankle from underneath the RV, nearly pulling me to the ground as it tried to yank me under the vehicle. I barely managed to catch myself on Carl's shoulder before shoving him and Eliza away as a wriggling body used my leg to pull itself and its gnashing teeth closer. Everyone cowering with me let loose a scream, but I took care of the problem with little to no hesitance. I handled my empty gun like it was a club, using the grip to cave in the fragile skull until the Walker no longer moved. I dropped the gun as I realized more bodies were crawling from underneath the RV, my blood-slicked fingers fumbling for the knife at my hip and yanking it free as the next Walker crested over beside Jacqui. She took care of it before I could, stabbing at it wildly with an umbrella she'd snagged from nearby until the metal tip sunk into brains.

Mom, Carol, and Miranda were sandwiched with the children in between the line of men and Jacqui and me. My mind whirred with panicked thoughts. There were too many. We'd run out of bullets before we killed them all, and sooner or later they'd grow tired of the already dead campers they were eating and would come looking for fresher meat. They'd swarm us, and there'd be nowhere to turn. If we ran in the RV, it would only be a matter of time before they broke in. I darted forward as another head crawled free of the bottom of the RV, planting my foot on the back of its neck to pin it to the ground so I could drive my knife into the vulnerable notch where the brainstem ran unprotected into the spinal cord.

The cacophony of gunfire became louder, seeming to pick up in speed and number. It was only after I looked up that I realized the muzzle flashes were coming from the far side of the campground, out of the dark forests. I squinted through the dark, making out four men cleaving through the Walkers and making their way towards us survivors. Dad, Glenn, Daryl, and T-Dog – they were back. Relief at seeing them alive and arriving at the most pivotal moment.

A hand grabbed my arm and yanked me suddenly to the side, and I crashed into Mom who had pulled me out of the way of a Walker that had climbed from under the RV and gained its feet, unseen by me. My heart jolted at my own stupidity but, before I could move to take care of it, Shane's shotgun more or less decapitated the monster as he redirected his attention to taking out the remaining stragglers under the RV. And then…silence.

An unearthly stillness followed as the growling and the gunfire ceased, heavy breathing and sobbing filling its absence. I found myself shaking, one hand still gripping at Mom and the other wrapped so tightly around the handle of my knife that I had lost feeling in my fingers. Mom and Carl suddenly disappeared from beside me, taking off at a dead sprint towards Dad who emerged from the crowd of survivors looking terrified and pale and screaming for us. He enveloped them in a hug with blatant relief, nearly collapsing to the ground. I would have been right behind them if my legs hadn't been shaking so bad. Instead, I dropped my knife on the ground and placed my arms crossed over my head and tried to focus on focusing to breath.

"Hey, Kit." Shane's hand was once again on my arm, but this time it was gentler if not a little shaky from spent adrenaline. "Are you okay? Hey, look at me sweetheart."

But I didn't. Instead, my legs crumpled underneath me and I hit my knees, falling forward onto my hands as my stomach gave a violent lurch, sending half-digested fish to spew from my mouth and onto the ground. The sound of my retching joined the symphony of scared crying, my own sobs finding time to break free between hurling. Shane crouched beside me, shushing me soothingly. One of his hands pulled at my ponytail, keeping my long hair out of the mess I'd just made, and the other rubbed at my back as I finished emptying my stomach.

"It's okay, sweetheart." He whispered to me consolingly, head bent next to mine. "You're okay, you're fine. It's over."

"Kit!" Dad's voice nearly overshadowed his best friend's as he joined us.

Spitting, I lifted my head and saw him frog-marching forward. I tried to stand, ending up having to use Shane to help lever myself to my feet. I walked through my own vomit puddle as I fell into Dad, crushing Carl between us and feeling Mom's hand in my hair. Every limb was trembling violently, and it suddenly hit me why I was so scared. This was home. This was supposed to be safe. I'd gone into Atlanta before, and I'd seen hordes, but this…this attack was on a domestic front. I knew what I was getting into going into the city. The camp was supposed to be _safe_. And it wasn't. It obviously wasn't.

"Amy!" An agonized voice howled. " _Amy! A-Amy!_ "

My heart spiked violently at the reminder, and I tried to look but Mom's hand on my head kept my face pressed into Dad's shoulder.

"No," She whispered hoarsely. "Don't look, Kit."

I squeezed my eyes shut tight.


	6. Chapter 6: Not Safe

She hadn't moved in hours.

With danger gone, I finally allowed myself to be sucked into the macabre scene that Amy's lifeless body and Andrea's empty stare created. I don't know how long it had actually been since Amy's last breath, but I could practically feel the ticking of time as she laid there prone. It would happen eventually. She'd breathe again. Her eyes would open. She'd move, and from a distance it might look like she had miraculously been brought back to life. But she was dead. _She_ wasn't coming back. Something else was. And the thought that Andrea, in the midst of her grief, might not know the difference...I'd already lost one of my good friends and couldn't bear the thought of losing another so quickly after. So, even though I likely should have been helping move bodies, I remained sitting on the car bench-seat in front of the cold firepit. I remained staring at the sisters, watching and waiting, because nobody else was. Everyone seemed to be ignoring them, in fact; almost like they were doing their best to acknowledge _anything_ else than the silently grieving Andrea and the blood-stained Amy.

Carl sat beside me, burrowed into my side with his eyes closed. I had my arm around his shoulder, holding him against me. Sophia was seated on my other side, her hand clasped loosely in mine and her usually bright blue eyes dull with a mixture of emotions. Ed had fallen to the Walkers, like most of the camp had. I couldn't imagine what her thoughts were like. Should she be sad? It was her father, sure, but he was an abusive alcoholic who had done unspeakable things to both her and her mother. How could anyone feel remorse for the death of a monster like that? Eliza and Louis were in their tent with Miranda, hiding from the carnage and likely trying to get some sleep. Nobody had closed their eyes, likely not even to blink, until the sun had started cresting and lighting the sky with orange light.

Movement heading towards the sisters had me pulling my attention away from Amy's still chest. Mom walked hesitantly towards Andrea, falling to a squat and bending her head to lean in close. I was definitely too far away to hear what was being said, but one might have assumed not a word passed between the two judging by Andrea's complete lack of acknowledgment. Mom patted Andrea briefly on the shoulder as she defeatedly stood back up, wiping her hands on her pants and heading in the direction of the fire. She sat carefully down in the seat beside me, as to not wake Carl, and gave me a pursed smile. I couldn't even return it, just nodding my head in return. Footsteps crunching through gravel from behind made me crane my head, seeing Dad approaching from wherever it had been he'd scurried off to. Shane, who had been helping drag bodies to burn or bury, was quick to beeline towards our small group at his best friend's reappearance.

There was an uncomfortable moment of the adults standing there and waiting for someone to break the silence. The elephant in the room that no one wanted to point out, even now.

"She still won't move?" Dad finally asked.

Shane shook his head, hands on his hips as he caught his breath from dragging bodies.

"She won't even talk to us." Mom sighed. "She's been there all night. What do we do?"

"Can't just leave Amy like that." Shane grimaced. "We need to deal with it. Same as the others."

Destroy the brain. Right. It was common sense but seeing as Amy was… _had_ been one of my best friends, the idea of mutilating her corpse was truly nauseating. Even if it _needed_ to be done.

"I'll tell her how it is." Dad volunteered.

Before I could suggest that maybe someone closer to Andrea should deliver the news, he'd already strutted off towards the RV that everyone was giving a wide berth of. I watched, as I had been all day, as Andrea's arm shifted in front of her. I watched as Dad moved to drop into a crouch. I watched as Andrea leveled a silver gun at my Dad's head, cutting off whatever he'd been about to say. I was on my feet in the next heartbeat, Mom's hand on my arm warding me from charging forward even as she herself looked ready to bolt as she stood beside me. I heard Carl blearily question what was going on and Sophia inhale sharply in fear. Andrea said something, but I was too far away to hear. Dad just nodded and held up a hand passively as he started to slowly back away. It wasn't until a few good feet were between the two that Andrea finally lowered the gun and returned back to her vigil. I sucked in a breath that I hadn't realized I was holding as soon as Dad was out of danger, feeling like someone had just splashed me with liquid nitrogen. I was freezing cold and I was sure that if someone touched me too hard, I would just shatter into a million pieces.

The spectacle, while not loud, had drawn the attention of the rest of the camp survivors who cautiously tiptoed to join us at the fire. Daryl, lugging a pickaxe over his shoulder that dripped viscera onto the dusty ground, was the most vocal with his displeasure. His movements were jittery with anxiety and anger.

"You can't be serious." He hissed, pacing. "Letting that girl hamstring us? The dead one's a time bomb."

It rubbed at me the way he referred to Amy, but it rubbed at me even more the fact that he wasn't wrong. Amy had to be handled; I just wished he didn't make himself sound like such an ass while saying it.

"What do you suggest?" Dad asked wearily.

Daryl stared at my father like he'd just asked the stupidest question in the world. "Take the shot. Clean. In the brain, from here. Hell, I could hit a turkey between the eyes at this distance-,"

"No." Mom interrupted sharply. "For God's sake, let her be."

We were going around in circles. I looked at Shane who looked at Dad and shrugged. I glanced at Dad who repeated the gesture and turned to look at Daryl. I looked at Daryl who glanced at all of us in disbelief before shaking his head in disgust and abruptly turning around and walking away. As he stalked off and went to help Morales, I spotted Jacqui who was pulling a corpse all on her lonesome. I glanced back at the kids, seeing Mom comforting a half-awake Carl and Carol sitting where I had been, talking softly with Sophia. Understanding that I wasn't needed anymore and that everyone had been brought up to speed on the Amy issue, I made for Jacqui who looked up as I approached and gave me a grateful look.

"I got it." I muttered quietly, taking one of the dead man's arms from her grasp and pretending not to feel the flaky dried blood.

Glancing down briefly at the man's face, I almost couldn't make out any features. Whatever Walker had gotten him had gnawed his face half-off. I wondered if it would have mattered. I likely wouldn't have recognized him anyway. I didn't know half of the people I had once cohabitated with. I'm sure he had had a life before. Maybe he'd gathered water for camp once. Or maybe he'd helped hunt and scavenge. Had he ever stood guard at night and protected the camp while I slept? None of it mattered anymore. No one would remember him. He was just another casualty. In time, he wouldn't even be that. He'd be completely forgotten.

"We don't burn them!"

I looked over my shoulder as I heard Glenn's raised voice, surprised at the outburst from my usually reserved friend. Jacqui and I stilled on the body we were dragging and eyed Morales and Daryl as they paused in hauling their own body toward the already blazing burn pile. Glenn was standing in their path with clenched fists and a red face. He swallowed heavily and seemed to calm himself before continuing in a lower voice.

"We bury them. Understand?" He said through gritted teeth.

Daryl and Morales only hesitated for a few seconds before relenting and changing their course to a line of bodies near where Andrea crouched over Amy. Those in the line were people who we'd been able to identify as having once been apart of our camp. There weren't that many. I couldn't help but wonder how many had already been mistakenly fed to the fire.

"You reap what you sow."

I froze in disbelief as I heard Daryl bitterly sneer.

"Shut up, man!" Morales snapped before letting out a grunt as he was thrown backwards by his own weight, Daryl having promptly released his grip on the corpse. I winced as his heavy frame hit the ground hard, but Daryl didn't seem to care one bit. In fact, he only seemed to become more aggressive.

"Y'all left my brother for dead!" He snarled, glaring at everyone and pointing. "You had this coming!"

Disbelief faded to anger as his words played in my head. _You had this coming_. Amy's lifeless body was slowly decomposing in the early morning heat. _You had this coming_. I had seen the bodies of children that had been ripped apart, children who I had babysat and played with. _You had this coming_. My mother, my brother, my father, my uncle – they all could have died last night. But, _you had this coming_ -

I didn't quite realize I'd dropped the body of the dead man and had taken a few steps in the direction Daryl had stomped off in until Jacqui's hand descended on my arm. I whipped around to look at her, and it was the sympathy and understanding in her dark eyes that kept me from doing anything rash.

"Come on." She encouraged. "Don't mind him."

I didn't want to mind him, but…how dare he? How selfish and cruel could you be to…I nodded in agreement with Jacqui. Daryl was Daryl and _I_ surely wasn't going to change him. Taking in a calming breath, I grasped my dead man's arm and Jacqui grabbed hers. We had to put our back into it as neither one of us were particularly large, and I was relieved when Jim noticed our struggling and came to help. Jacqui and I greeted him with grateful smiles which he didn't return, his face sweaty and lined with exhaustion. It was as Jim bent down the grab the man's legs and help ease our burden that I noticed Jacqui's posture stiffen.

"Are you bleeding?" She asked quietly.

I looked up in confusion, thinking she was talking to me, but found her eyes locked onto a wet patch of dark burgundy on Jim's grey shirt. I frowned in concern. Jim let out a heavy breath and bent at the knees to lift, shaking his head.

"I just got some on me from the bodies." He said tiredly, swallowing.

"That bloods fresh." I denied, tilting my head at Jim. "Were you hurt?"

"Were you _bit_?" Jacqui clarified in a worried yet accusing tone.

"No." Jim breathed, hefting the legs of the dead man and waiting for us to do the same with the arms. "I got scratched during the attack."

"You got bit!" Jacqui hissed, standing up and grabbing my arm to pull me up and away.

As we stumbled back, Jim straightened up and grimaced.

"I'm fine." He insisted.

"Then show me!" Jacqui demanded.

I watched in resigned horror as Jim hesitated, looking at the both of us with wildly desperate and pleading eyes. People were already stopping in their activities to cast interested looks our way at Jacqui's raised voice. Jim took a step closer to us and looked around.

"Don't tell." He pleaded in a whispered voice.

"A Walker got him!" Jacqui called loudly, backing away. "A Walker bit Jim!"

I stood stock still for a few moments as she moved away, staring at the tall man in front of me. No, no, no, that wasn't fair. That wasn't _fair._ The danger had passed. We were safe now, damn it. We'd survived and it was daylight, and everything was supposed to be okay, at least for just a little while. God couldn't be that cruel. First Amy, now Jim? The primal part of me that wanted to survive no matter what urged a retreat and I did just that, albeit hesitantly, taking slow and stumbling steps backwards until I ran into someone. I looked over my shoulder and met Dad's eyes.

"Dad." I choked, but I didn't know what I wanted to say.

I was hoping he'd assure me that Jim was fine – it truly wasn't a bite, just a bit of blood from the bodies we'd been lifting, as he'd said. Jim's feverish behavior and disorientation was just another bout of heat stroke. He grasped both of my shoulders and handed me off to Shane who was quick to hand me off to Mom as the two of them edged closer to a now panicked Jim. Mom's arm around my shoulders disappeared as Carl snuck away from Carol and came running up to see what all the commotion was about. She grabbed him before he could get any closer, holding him against her protectively. Morales, Daryl and T-Dog joined in circling the frightened man.

"Show it to us!" Daryl demanded, pickaxe slung threateningly over his shoulder. "Show it to us!"

When Morales stepped a bit too close, Jim grabbed a nearby shovel up off the ground and brandished it like a weapon, casting fearful looks around at the men. A deep feeling of hopelessness blossomed in my chest like the spiny, sharp branches of a dead tree. It hurt. A hand pressed against my back, and I looked up to see Glenn standing beside me with the same empty look that I felt in my heart. I leaned into him for support, but I wasn't sure if it was for me or for him.

"Put it down, Jim!"

"Grab it from him!"

"Show us!"

"Put it down!"

"Jim!"

T-Dog darted up behind Jim when his back was turned and caught him in a bearhug, holding his arms pinned to his sides and forcing the shovel to clatter to the ground. Daryl slunk forward and grabbed Jim' shirt, pulling it up above his ribs. A perfect bite mark, two half crescent indentions in the skin, resided to the left of his stomach. Angry and red, swollen and deadly...I'd known it was there when Jim had pleaded with Jacqui and I to stay quiet, but actually _seeing_ it…I closed my eyes, hearing Daryl and T-Dog scramble backwards like they'd been burned.

"I'm okay." Jim assured uneasily. "I'm okay, I'm okay."

Bile rose in my throat and I desperately pushed it back, squeezing my eyes tighter together and pressed my forehead into Glenn's shoulder. He turned the both of us around and we walked towards Carol and Jacqui who had retreated to the fringe of the camp. Even as though we were walking away, I could still hear Jim's desperate affirmations.

"I'm okay." He repeated. "I'm okay. I'm okay."

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

"I say we put a pickaxe in his head, and the dead girl's and be done with it."

It was hurting me, _physically_ hurting me, but I managed to keep my mouth shut by biting my lip. My patience with Daryl was quickly wearing thin. I could feel the distaste roll off of him in waves anytime he looked anyone who had gone on the disastrous trip into Atlanta when Merle had been lost, including my father. It was royally pissing me off, especially since it had been Dad who had insisted that they go back for the volatile man in the first place. Shane seemed to agree with my sentiments, or at the very least seemed to be just as tired as me of hearing the same insensitive shit.

"That what you'd want?" Shane snapped, looking up sharply. "If it were you?"

"Yeah, and I'd thank you while you did it." Daryl retorted nastily.

I rolled my eyes, shaking my head.

"I hate to say it, I never thought I would but, maybe Daryl is right." Dale admitted, stumbling a bit over his words.

That was unexpected. I glanced at him in surprised confusion and Glenn shared my response, mouth slightly open as we both sat on the stripped remains of the mustang that had been picked clean, listening to the words that had left the old man's mouth.

"Jim's not a monster, Dale, or some rabid dog to be put down." Dad argued.

"I'm not suggesting-," Dale tried to defend himself.

"He's sick, a sick man! We start down that road, where do we draw the line?" Dad bulldozed on heatedly, only clenching his jaw tight when Mom tried soothing him with a shushing sound.

"The line is pretty clear. Zero tolerance for Walkers, or the to-be." Daryl sneered.

Was he wrong? Not entirely. But that meant he wasn't right, either. And I was pissed at him, so I was spiteful enough to disagree with whatever he said just on principle alone.

"What if we can get him help?" Dad suggested. "I heard the CDC was working on a cure."

"I heard that too." Shane nodded his head, but not at all in agreement with Dad's suggested course of action. "Heard a lot of things before the world went to hell."

"What if the CDC's still up and running?"

"Man, that is a stretch right there." Shane sighed.

"Why?" Dad asked, narrowing his eyes and shaking his head. "If there's any sort of government left, any structure at all, they would protect the CDC at all costs, wouldn't they? I think it's our best shot. Shelter, protection, rescue-,"

"Okay, Rick, you want those things." Shane interrupted, imploring to his best friend. "I do too, brother. Now if they exist…they're at the army base. Fort Benning."

"That's a hundred miles in the opposite direction." Mom fretted.

"That is right." Shane agreed. "But it is away from the hot zone. Now listen to me. If that place is operational, it'll be heavily armed. We'd be safe there."

"Who's to say they'd take us in?" I couldn't help but ask, disregarding the fact that this was an adult-conversation and I likely wasn't intended to be a part of it. "I mean, why would they? They're the _actual_ army, not the Salvation Army. Why would they take in civilians and risk compromising whatever structure they have?"

"Who says the CDC would either?" Glenn shot back at me, more to just present the other side of the argument than actually start one. "If I was a part of the last-standing medical facility in the country – maybe the world – I wouldn't let a group of strangers with possible exposure into my building."

"Look, the military were on the front lines of this thing. They got overrun, we've all seen that! The CDC is our best choice and Jim's only chance!" Dad insisted.

There was silence for a few moments as everyone tried to decide what the best plan of action would be. Both options were definitely risky and promised no guarantees. Both had benefits if they were successful, but both also had horrific risks if our faith and hope ended up being misplaced. The kind of risks that led to loss of life in a brutal, animalistic, painful way. And honestly, who wanted to be the guy that made the wrong call?

"You go looking for aspirin, do what you need to do." Daryl growled, taking a few quick steps back. "Somebody needs to have the balls to take care of this damn problem!"

Pickaxe raised, Daryl darted towards Jim before most of us could really react. I slid off the hood of the car but not nearly fast enough. Dad was, though. Whether it be from years of conditioning from being a police officer or just dumb luck, Dad managed to meet Daryl step for step. The cocking of his revolver interrupted the screams of horror, prompting silence afterward as Dad held his gun to the back of Daryl's head. Nobody moved, spoke, or scarcely dared to breathe. We waited and we watched. Shane moved between Daryl and Jim, shotgun held horizontal below his waist with both hands as he acted like a human shield.

"We don't kill the living." Dad enunciated clearly.

"That's funny," Daryl rasped, lowering his weapon. "Coming from a man who just put a gun to my head."

"We may disagree on some things, but not on this. You put it down." Shane encouraged.

Daryl shoved the pickaxe into the ground and stormed away in a rush of anger. I fell back against the hood of the car as the tension in the air dissipated some, my heart thudding madly against my ribs. I let out a long breath. Dad grabbed Jim and led him away, hopefully to somewhere safer. Shane followed with, running a hand through his hair and clenching the shotgun so tightly that the veins in his arms pushed up against his skin. As they went away the rest of the group followed, seemingly lost without someone to tell them what to do. Glenn and I didn't herd after them right away, lingering by the cherry red mustang. Glenn heaved a sigh, hands on his hips and his head falling backwards as he moaned towards the sky.

"God." He whined.

"Leave a message at the beep." I joked weakly, sliding my hands behind my neck and squeezing the strands of hair at the base of my skull.

"Well, this is a real 'rock and a hard place' situation." He commented.

"Yeah." I murmured.

I looked over at him, taking in his bruised face and the hopelessness on it. I think I surprised him when I enveloped him in a hug, because it took him a second to reciprocate it.

"Are you alright?" He asked, sounding confused.

"I'm glad you're okay." I replied weakly. "I'm sorry I didn't think to say it before. Everything's just been…"

"Absolute shit." Glenn finished for me, nodding. "I know. I get it. It's fine."

"You _are_ okay, right?" I asked, pulling back and looking him over. "Was it bad?"

"Worse than before." Glenn admitted. "We found some other survivors a little way outside the city. An old retirement home run by one of the janitors – his name is Guillermo. I guess when everything happened, everyone just abandoned all those old people, but Guillermo stayed."

"They're friendly?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah." Glenn nodded emphatically.

I furrowed my brow in question, but my friend pointedly looked away. He was a shit liar and he knew it. I decided to let it go.

"I'm guessing Merle is…"

"He wasn't there." Glenn sighed, leaning back against the car again. "Well, his hand was, but…"

"He cut…cut himself out…" I struggled to get the words as I struggled with the mental image of Merle hacking his own hand off to escape a brutal death.

"He's alive. Or, we think he is. Someone stole our van, and we think it might have been him. We thought he'd be coming back here, but…"

But instead of an angry, vengeful, wrath-filled drug addict wreaking havoc, they'd shown up to the camp being overrun by Walkers devouring anyone in sight. I shook my head as I remembered the horror and helplessness I'd felt when Amy's scream had first pierced the air. Then the Walkers just kept coming, and coming, and coming, and _coming_. We would have run out of bullets before the end of the wave of undead. We would have been overrun.

"You guys came just in time." I whispered.

"It was like something out of a nightmare." Glenn admitted, in the same hushed voice as me. "We had to run all the way back here, and when we heard the gunfire and the screams…then to get here and find…we're so far away from the city up here. I don't even…how could they have made their way all the way here?"

"Maybe the smoke from the fires? The fish fry. Maybe they smelt it."

"Maybe."

We pushed off of the vehicle simultaneously, ready to follow the migration of the rest of the survivors when my eyes drifted towards the sisters that I'd been watching all morning. When I stopped, Glenn froze to and gave me a questioning look.

"I'll catch up." I said with a wavering smile.

He seemed to catch the gist of what I was going to do rather quickly and squeezed my shoulder in support before departing. I waited until he was a good distance away before turning and making my way over to the RV. I made sure to approach at an angle where Andrea could see me, hoping that she wouldn't shove a gun in my face like she did Dad. The anger I'd felt from before was dissipated as I came closer to Amy and got my first good look at her since she'd fallen. She'd always been pale, something I'd always teased her about even though she'd grown up in Florida, but she was paler than pale. The saying "pale as a ghost" came to mind. The whiteness of her skin just made the splashes of crimson blood smeared all over her that much more shocking. I could see the bite marks; I could even see the crescent shape of the teeth where the Walker had bitten chunks off of her. The blueness of her veins tracked across her arms and up her neck like creeping vine tendrils.

Andrea glanced at me from the corner of her eye as I stopped beside her.

"I…" I suddenly found my voice hard to project. Clearing my throat, I tried again. "Can I sit?"

She nodded absently and I lowered myself to sit on my legs next to her. I felt an immediate burning in my eyes as I looked down at my friend. Just a few days ago we'd been goofing off on the way to the gorge to bathe. Yesterday, not even twenty-four hours ago, she'd joked with me as we did laundry. Now, she was dead, and those memories were all I had to hold on to. I looked towards Andrea, but she was giving her undivided attention to her sister's corpse. I understood. I placed a hesitant hand on Andrea's shoulder and felt her stiffen under my touch.

"I am so sorry, Andrea." I whispered. "I know there's nothing I can say or do to make it better. If I can…if there is _anything_ …let me know. For what it's worth, I'm here if you need me."

The older blonde-haired woman merely nodded. I pursed my lips as the first tear fell, curving over my cheek and angling to settle on the corner of my mouth. I rolled my lips and tasted the salty liquid sharp on my tongue. As I withdrew my hand and made to stand, Andrea's underused voice croaked out.

"She adored you."

"I adored her." I admitted after a heartbeat. "I was lucky to have a friend like her. She deserved better than this."

Andrea nodded faintly in agreement and closed her eyes, a tear falling to land on Amy's body. I didn't say anything else, just pushed to my feet and walked away. I left her to continue mourning in peace.

The funeral was brutal. Jim's manic hole-digging episode the day before eerily paid off, as Dad and Shane had only needed to add a few more graves to fit the copious amount of bodies we had. Some were wrapped in sheets, some in plastic bags, a few in tarps, and some just covered in whatever bit of cloth we could find. We buried most of them without even knowing their names, just knowing that they had inhabited our camp with us. Daryl had only caused a slight argument right before the procession, but it had been Mom of all people to shut him down. We all helped one another carry stiffening bodies out of the blue truck's bed to lay in the ground, saving Amy for last. Andrea refused any help, struggling with the weight of her sister's body but insisting she could do it on her own. We'd all stood by and watched as she did just that, smoothing her hand over Amy's blonde hair sticking out from underneath the sheet she was wrapped in. We filled in the holes in silence, packed the tools in silence, and we made the slow trek back down to camp in silence.

Back at camp, mostly everyone just collapsed on the nearest available surface and waited. We waited for someone to come up with a plan. To tell us what we were supposed to do next. Jim's occasional cry of pain would echo from the RV as his bite wound started to affect him; Carol was inside dutifully tending to the sick man even though everyone else was avoiding him. To be fair, I was one of them. Amy's bite had killed her before the sickness had; it was quick. Jim's would not be quick. It would be long and painful, and I didn't want to see it. It might have been blissful ignorance, but I was fine with that.

Andrea was asleep in the lawn chair beside me, curled underneath a blanket despite the relatively warm day. After her nerve-wracking farewell with the reanimated Amy, followed by her shooting what had formerly been her sister, I was surprised she was able to close her eyes. She was probably in shock, though, so sleep seemed the best she could do for herself. Carl was seated beside me with a length of rope, knotting and unknotting it repetitively. I watched his fingers move as he sloppily did a half-hitch knot backwards before yanking it loose and moving to a slip knot. Mom fiddled with a stick she was shaving into a point with a pocket knife, more out of nervous energy than to make a weapon. We all just sat there and waited.

It seemed like a century later when Dad and Shane finally returned from their sweep, Dale trailing after them with an unreadable look on his face. Shane spoke immediately, beckoning everyone to gather around closer and waiting for us to do so. I felt Glenn move from standing behind me to crouching beside me, anxious as any of us to hear what our next move was. Staying? Fort Benning? CDC? Somewhere else?

"So, uh, I've been thinking about Rick's plan. Now, look. There are no guarantees either way. I'll be the first one to admit that. I've known this man a long time." Shane paused and looked up from where he crouched by the fire, meeting Dad's gaze. "I trust his instincts. I say the most important thing here is we need to stay together. So those of you that agree, we leave first thing in the morning. Okay?"

No one said anything.

The rest of the day was spent packing and organizing. We had to prioritize what we were taking with us and figure which vehicles would be the most efficient to take. Gasoline was in short supply and we admittedly had more vehicles than we needed. By the time dinner rolled around (leftover fish which everyone seemed to eat with bitterness) the camp looked appropriately abandoned. Only a few tents remained, but they were empty of anything except sleeping bags. We'd tear them down in the morning before heading out. Dale, T-Dog, and Shane volunteered to take watch for the night on a rotating schedule. I didn't sleep a wink that night, though. Not even a little bit. Glenn snoozed away beside me, but I couldn't stop hearing the sounds of the dead creeping closer.

The wind rustling on the nylon of the tent were the nail-less fingers of Walkers trying to get in. Twigs breaking in the nearby woods weren't squirrels rummaging for food but sloppy, shuffling footsteps. Someone in camp let out a particularly loud snore? It was the snarling of a monster. Even when Glenn would let out tiny little sleepy snorts, I'd send a quick kick to his leg to get him to roll over and be silent once more. By the time the rising sun started to leak through the orang plastic, I was strung out and relieved at the same time.

Breakfast was no more than some acorn bread and water that we all stuffed down before tearing down our tents and falling in line to wait for the 'go ahead' from either Shane or Dad. I stood next to Glenn and in front of Mom as she kindly pulled my greasy gross hair from out of my face into a high ponytail on the top of my head. Now that the sun was fully risen, exhaustion hit me like a fist to the face. The sun was a comforting presence, enough so that I finally felt like I was okay to sleep. Unfortunately, it wasn't naptime but 'get on the move' time.

"Alright, everybody, listen up." Shane said loudly, drawing everybody's attention toward him. "Those of you with CBs, we're gonna be on channel 40. Let's keep the chatter down, okay? Now you got a problem and don't have a CB, can't get a signal or anything at all, you're gonna hit you horn one time. That'll stop the caravan. Any questions?"

Shane looked around at us, but we shook our heads in negative response. I picked up my backpack filled with my meager belongings that had been thinned out majorly since my family's immediate evacuation from home. Slinging it on my shoulder, I turned to look up at Glenn.

"So, which vehicle?" I prompted.

"I'm in the RV." He replied. "I'm helping Dale navigate."

I frowned.

"What?" Glenn asked.

"Nothing, it's just I…I just don't really want to ride in the RV, is all." I admitted, thinking about Jim laying sick in the very back.

"Well, the Cherokee is full. Your parents, Carl, and Carol and Sophia are driving it."

"I'll go with Shane." I shrugged. "He won't mind. Are you going to be okay without me?"

I added the last part with some jest.

"I think I'll survive." Glenn snorted dryly. "It'll be such a bummer not having you constantly pressuring me to play poker with you, though. No means no, Kit."

"You suck at lying, and that is the only reason you won't play." I shot back.

"I do not."

"Really?" I asked, craning my head to stare him straight in the eyes. "Well, then how about you tell me who it was who ate the other half of the chocolate bar that I had stashed in my backpack for safekeeping?"

Glenn blinked. "Uh, well, you see…you let the tent open one day and there was this raccoon-,"

"There was no raccoon." I interrupted gently, shaking my head sympathetically.

"There could have been a raccoon."

"You are the worst-,"

"We're not going."

I broke off, whipping my head around in surprise to look at Morales as he stood with his family.

Shane stared at them before repeating, "You're not going?"

"We have family in Birmingham." Miranda explained, one arm around each of her kids. "We want to be with our people."

"You go on your own, you won't have anyone to watch your back." He warned, as if hoping that it would make them see sense and stay.

"We'll take the chance." Morales said, lifting his chin and eyeing both Dad and Shane pointedly. "I gotta do what's best for my family."

"You sure?" Dad asked.

"We talked about it. We're sure."

As Shane and Dad went rifling through the gun bag to find a suitable weapon for the departing family, I moved towards Eliza and Louis. Eliza's arms wrapped around my waist tightly as I bent down to hug her, her small frame shaking with repressed crying. I pressed a long kiss to the top of her head before pulling back and meeting her dark eyes.

"Be careful." I said firmly, although my eyes were feeling a little misty as I said goodbye to another child who I had taken care of over the past few months. "Look out for your brother."

Eliza just nodded, and I squeezed her shoulder before moving towards Louis as Mom moved to take my spot. I ruffled the boy's hair before giving him a hard hug and kissing him on top of his head as well.

"Look out for your sister." I said. "Don't get into trouble."

"I won't." Louis said softly, not crying but looking incredibly sad to be leaving.

I hugged Miranda and repeated the same words of farewell as I had to her children, giving Morales a half-hug before moving out of the way. The rest of the campers followed, hugging and crying and kissing before heading quickly to their cars as Shane urged us along.

"Let's go, folks." He said, loud enough to be heard over the sniffling. "Let's move out."


End file.
